My band wrote/recorded this song without me around and it sounds better than everything else we've done

this has happened to me many times. I'm always the weak link. But i'm the face / archivist / editor and i don't feel bad because everyone i hang around with is sublimely talented in some way or another and i'm merely good looking

don't you mean it's the best thing they've ever done?

This is the ghost of John Lennon talking about "Free as a Bird".

Yeah, in retrospect that's probably the fair phrasing, frank. *rubs salt in wound*

This is like when Jesse and the Rippers got that next singer, and despite Uncle Jesse's skepticism ("What are they gonna be without me? Just "...and the Rippers!") they become massively successful.

my band booked a show for next week when I'll be out of town, and are going to try and pull it off with a different drummer. I'm terribly bitter about it, so I'm going to relish hearing about how badly it will inevitably have gone (not so much because I'm so important, but because I know without me pestering everyone to get together to practice there's no way they're going to be properly prepared for it, they weren't even able to get my understudy to come let me teach him my parts). this is a big gig (for us), so them fucking it up will be bad for all of us in the long run, but I'm willing to live with that just for the satisfaction of having those fuckers to crash and burn after ditching me.