Blame it on Gawain

My friends and I have come up with many an "inside joke" term to describe specific emotions.  For example, when you are playing a game, and just played a "game ender" rather than a "Bitches!" or "Bam!" to express an "in your face" move we say "Braziiiiil!!!" those of you who have watched Fast Five (of the Fast and the Furious fame) will get that.  It's from that famous scene where the Rock tries to arrest Vin, and he gets all up in Rock's face and pretty much says "you have no authority here".  Braziiiiiil has fast become one of our favorite "I'm Awesome" lines. 

On the other end of the Spectrum, is "Gawain".  Gawain is used in game play (which sounds super RPG - but what I mean is board game nights) when you make a less than awesome move that costs you the game (or at least throws you back in last place).  Gawain came from one of Erik's board games called "Shadows over Camelot"  where you all play knights of the round table.

At the beginning of the game, you get to pick who your character is, and Erik often picks Gawain (which I think is a horrible name... sorry for those of you Gawains reading this).  Now I don't just say Gawain, when I say the name it's more like Gaaaa-Wain (like you are saying the name of the bumbling idiot - once again sorry for the Gawains of the world... your name really sucks).

The name got an even worse stigma when we played the "advanced" version of Shadows over Camelot, where one of you is a traitor, and secretly works to sabotage the rest of you so you don't achieve your goals.  Gawain was the traitor once, and Erik was playing him.  And I just ended up running with it... 

"What kind of name is Gawain?!?  It sounds like the name of a traitor!"
"Hmmmm - that sounds like something Gawain would do!"
"Oh Gawain.... you've let us down again" 
" Oh, look at that - Gawain wants to seperate from the rest of the group - I bet he just needs time to cry about his stupid name..."

Okay that last one didn't happen, but I sure was thinking it!

Gawain became such an inside joke, that even when we are playing different games, "Oh Gawain" is heard throughout the night every time something goes wrong, or someone makes a poor choice. 

One day when I was driving home from work in one of our lovely monsoon summer afternoons, "Blame it on the Rain" by Milly Vanilly came on the radio, and I immediately thought of "Blame it on Gawain" as a theme song for game nights! 

I told Erik a couple nights later, and he laughed pretty hard, and just like that, another inside joke was born! 

Last friday we had a game night, and I explained to Erik, that when he makes good choices, it's Erik - but when he makes silly choices (like giving up 5 health points in order to acquire more victory points, and thus gets killed on the very next turn because he didn't have enough health to take the attack) I call that Gawain making his choices.  So every now and then after a move is made, someone will say "Oh Gawain" letting the person know that was probably not the best choice.

A couple days after our game night, Erik posted this on my wall:

Oh Gawain... :) (that was fun last night!)

I laughed at it, and then mentioned it to Ben and said "I'm going to write the whole song..."  he assumed I would forget my quest - but in true stubborn Heather fashion, that only spurred me on more, so today, with Milly Vanilly playing in the background, I wrote out the Gawain Lyics to "Blame it on Gawain" .  It actually only took me about 5 minutes... the thing about this song is, there isn't a whole lot of rhyming.  So rather than come up with a word that fits with the previous line, Milly Vanilly just changes the key to make it sounds like a new line.  (which makes it really really easy for me to re-write the lyrics)

Enjoy (it's best if you hit play on the video above, and sing my lyrics over top to get the true feel of the song):

You said you had a plan now
You choose all your cards
You sacrificed your health points
…to satisfy your pride

Now you wish you didn’t do that
And you feel like such a fool
You went and lost the game
And you don’t know what went wrong
Gotta blame it on something…
Gotta blame it on something…

BLAME IT ON GAWAIN
It was all his fault now
BLAME IT ON THE CARDS
That were not dealt right
Whatever you do
Don’t put the blame on you…
BLAME IT ON GAWAIN – YEAH YEAH

You can Blame it on Gawain

Should have challenged someone else now
Should have taken less risk
No, you couldn’t do that
You had to prove you were strong
If you’d had a different plan then
You would still be in the game with us

You want another try
But we just don’t feel the same
Gotta blame it on something…
Gotta blame it on something…

BLAME IT ON GAWAIN
It was all his fault now
BLAME IT ON THE CARDS
That were not dealt right
Whatever you do
Don’t put the blame on you…
BLAME IT ON GAWAIN – YEAH YEAH

I’m gonna Blame it on Gawain
BECAUSE GAWAIN DON’T MIND!

And Gawain don’t care
You gotta blame it on something!

BLAME IT ON GAWAIN
It’s all his fault now
BLAME IT ON THE CARDS
That were not dealt right
Whatever you do
Don’t put the blame on you…
BLAME IT ON GAWAIN – YEAH YEAH

You can blame it on Gawain
BLAME IT ON GAWAIN – YEAH YEAH
BLAME IT ON GAWAIN – YEAH YEAH
BLAME IT ON GAWAIN – YEAH YEAH (You can Blame it on Gawain, Blame it on Gawain, Blame it on Gawain- Baby)
BLAME IT ON GAWAIN – YEAH YEAH (Blame it on the cards – that were not dealt right!)
BLAME IT ON GAWAIN – YEAH YEAH (Blame it, Blame it, Blame it on Gawain)
Whatever you do
Don’t put the blame on you…
BLAME IT ON GAWAIN – YEAH YEAH

Gotta blame it on something
Gotta blame it on something

(Fade out last verse)
BLAME IT ON GAWAIN
It’s all his fault now
BLAME IT ON THE CARDS
That were not dealt right
Whatever you do
Don’t put the blame on you…
BLAME IT ON GAWAIN – YEAH YEAH


I made Erik's day, and mine too actually.  Not gonna lie, I'm pretty proud of myself, and I can't wait for the next game night!  (Erik wants to make the music video!!)

So yeah.... THIS IS BRAZIIIIIL!!!