Thursday, December 11, 2008
Some Source of Life
Last night, it was really cold outside. It snowed! I decided to go to my other apartment and take a bubble bath in the central heat. I put on one of my favorite old mixtapes.
This one song I still like, by Bright Eyes and Son, Ambulance, was so, so sad. Oberst's voice is angsty, and the Son, Ambulance guy's so melancholy.
I sang along to the parts I remembered; the rhythm and melody and music parts are cool. I found myself singing little phrases like --
"You're always lookin' for somethin' to spit, smoke, or swallow!"
"Gotta find some source of life/ Gotta name some things you like/ Used to have such a longer list ..."
"You've gotta crawl from this bed you've made ..."
"'Cause you will never remember what you choose to forget."
Man, I sang. I jammed out. I did the crescendos. It was like hanging out with an old friend. That tape was four years old, and an old friend had given it to me. I thought of how many other people I know who love that song, or any of them, and they'd be like, "That rules."
This Desaparecidos song came on, reminding me how much I fucking love that band. Still, that album is so angry. He's talking about shopping bags and consumerism and marriage and houses and cars and white fences, and pretty much everything I hated when I was listening to it, too.
I couldn't help thinking, though, why does he hate them so much? Why is he so angry? Why is it so wrong to not be him? Then you think about the self-loathing in all his other songs, and it makes sense. He is crying out. He is angry because he is in pain -- immense pain -- and he doesn't understand how people can live out their daily lives and go to work, witnesses to all of it, like blind drones falling in line like cattle. Like emotionless, ignorant conformists. It's like when somebody dies and everyone goes to work and you're mourning, and you just want everything to stop.
That's how those appear to someone so miserable, and misery loves company, which is why I loved that tape, and so do so many, as someone else loved those songs and put them on that tape for me.
I thought about this girl I met not long ago. She's dating a friend of mine, and was trying to get him to switch from his Irish punk music to her music. You know what her music was? Neutral Milk Hotel and Neva Dinova.
And she was doing that scenester thing where she obviously thought no one else in the room could possibly know those bands. So, I'm like, "Yeah, they're good."
They're not all bad. "Two-headed Boy" and "Holland 1945"? I love those songs. But then she starts talking about which ones were her favorites and it was like the most depressing songs from the most depressing bands. I'm not kidding. I don't know the name of it; just think of the slowest NMH song you ever heard, and that was it.
I thought about how five years ago or something I would have instantly bonded with this chick; now, all I could think of was, "Wow, she's fucked up."
And that may be judgmental the other way, and maybe I'm projecting my past or emotions onto people when I think things like that, but I can only think of one person I've ever known who could listen to music like that without being in it, and enjoy it for its beauty alone, and that's Joe Tutt, and he's really well adjusted far as I can tell. So, I'm not saying it's not possible. I'm just saying what I have observed.
A Cursive song was on the tape as well -- "The Martyr." For the first time I saw some really strong parallels between it and The Ugly Organ that I missed before.
Tim Kasher and Conor Oberst really do border on infinite wisdom. Oberst almost gets there, especially with "Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love and To Be Loved)." Reflect on that and you start to think all his anger is not only out of pain but out of passion: that in Fevers and Mirrors and his other works, including Desaparacidos, he is leading up to the argument that nobody makes time for the things that matter anymore, and we make so little time we forget. His closest to realizing this, though, and giving it any real depth lies in those last few songs on The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground.
Same for Kasher. I started thinking about, once again, a song I at one time could mouth every single breath, and now only fragments: ideas like manufacturing pain and putting it on display, basically opening up a vein to sell records and how cheap that is, and how even more sad. He is right, but somehow it almost makes things worse, because he acknowledges that, like he has it right between his fingers, so close, but it keeps slipping through, and it's the slipping out between his fingers that inspires him to keep making those same sad, angry, songs, and the more he loses, the more he is fueled to do the same.
I don't know if I respect him more for it, or feel sorry for him, but that motherfucker can write; so, I will give him that.
***
All this stuff about Kasher made me think even more about those who do art because they have to -- and all artists do -- but for two reasons:
Some artists have to do art because they so desperately need an outlet; they are in pain and they need help, or at least, they need to feel they are not alone. Recycling pain for sale and lending it to ready listeners is the closest to healing. Although I at one time found these things therapeutic, I somewhat think it is the opposite of that.
The other kind of artists who "have to" is the genius snobs who I'm sure at least I wish I could be: the ones compelled to create something because they know they will do it better than anyone else, and worse, they are right.
I believe Kasher, Oberst, even Jenny Lewis at one time might have almost gotten there, or do at least for their respective genre -- but really I think more of the French Nouveau Vague filmmakers. It is so interesting that they studied film on their own only to become critics and then be like, "Screw this, we'll make our own movies, and they'll rule."
I feel the same way about Quinton Tarantino here. I guess from this also comes a pure love for the artform, where it's not just about expressing emotions, hoping someone will get it; but it's also about technique, form, style, content, effects -- creating memories. Making history, you know?
*UPDATE: I changed my mind. I just Googled that Bright Eyes/Son, Ambulance song, and am once again amazed and impressed at the title. Wow. Still relates to what I said about Kasher, though. Just sayin'. Also, it's a source of light.*
Last night, it was really cold outside. It snowed! I decided to go to my other apartment and take a bubble bath in the central heat. I put on one of my favorite old mixtapes.
This one song I still like, by Bright Eyes and Son, Ambulance, was so, so sad. Oberst's voice is angsty, and the Son, Ambulance guy's so melancholy.
I sang along to the parts I remembered; the rhythm and melody and music parts are cool. I found myself singing little phrases like --
"You're always lookin' for somethin' to spit, smoke, or swallow!"
"Gotta find some source of life/ Gotta name some things you like/ Used to have such a longer list ..."
"You've gotta crawl from this bed you've made ..."
"'Cause you will never remember what you choose to forget."
Man, I sang. I jammed out. I did the crescendos. It was like hanging out with an old friend. That tape was four years old, and an old friend had given it to me. I thought of how many other people I know who love that song, or any of them, and they'd be like, "That rules."
This Desaparecidos song came on, reminding me how much I fucking love that band. Still, that album is so angry. He's talking about shopping bags and consumerism and marriage and houses and cars and white fences, and pretty much everything I hated when I was listening to it, too.
I couldn't help thinking, though, why does he hate them so much? Why is he so angry? Why is it so wrong to not be him? Then you think about the self-loathing in all his other songs, and it makes sense. He is crying out. He is angry because he is in pain -- immense pain -- and he doesn't understand how people can live out their daily lives and go to work, witnesses to all of it, like blind drones falling in line like cattle. Like emotionless, ignorant conformists. It's like when somebody dies and everyone goes to work and you're mourning, and you just want everything to stop.
That's how those appear to someone so miserable, and misery loves company, which is why I loved that tape, and so do so many, as someone else loved those songs and put them on that tape for me.
I thought about this girl I met not long ago. She's dating a friend of mine, and was trying to get him to switch from his Irish punk music to her music. You know what her music was? Neutral Milk Hotel and Neva Dinova.
And she was doing that scenester thing where she obviously thought no one else in the room could possibly know those bands. So, I'm like, "Yeah, they're good."
They're not all bad. "Two-headed Boy" and "Holland 1945"? I love those songs. But then she starts talking about which ones were her favorites and it was like the most depressing songs from the most depressing bands. I'm not kidding. I don't know the name of it; just think of the slowest NMH song you ever heard, and that was it.
I thought about how five years ago or something I would have instantly bonded with this chick; now, all I could think of was, "Wow, she's fucked up."
And that may be judgmental the other way, and maybe I'm projecting my past or emotions onto people when I think things like that, but I can only think of one person I've ever known who could listen to music like that without being in it, and enjoy it for its beauty alone, and that's Joe Tutt, and he's really well adjusted far as I can tell. So, I'm not saying it's not possible. I'm just saying what I have observed.
A Cursive song was on the tape as well -- "The Martyr." For the first time I saw some really strong parallels between it and The Ugly Organ that I missed before.
Tim Kasher and Conor Oberst really do border on infinite wisdom. Oberst almost gets there, especially with "Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love and To Be Loved)." Reflect on that and you start to think all his anger is not only out of pain but out of passion: that in Fevers and Mirrors and his other works, including Desaparacidos, he is leading up to the argument that nobody makes time for the things that matter anymore, and we make so little time we forget. His closest to realizing this, though, and giving it any real depth lies in those last few songs on The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground.
Same for Kasher. I started thinking about, once again, a song I at one time could mouth every single breath, and now only fragments: ideas like manufacturing pain and putting it on display, basically opening up a vein to sell records and how cheap that is, and how even more sad. He is right, but somehow it almost makes things worse, because he acknowledges that, like he has it right between his fingers, so close, but it keeps slipping through, and it's the slipping out between his fingers that inspires him to keep making those same sad, angry, songs, and the more he loses, the more he is fueled to do the same.
I don't know if I respect him more for it, or feel sorry for him, but that motherfucker can write; so, I will give him that.
***
All this stuff about Kasher made me think even more about those who do art because they have to -- and all artists do -- but for two reasons:
Some artists have to do art because they so desperately need an outlet; they are in pain and they need help, or at least, they need to feel they are not alone. Recycling pain for sale and lending it to ready listeners is the closest to healing. Although I at one time found these things therapeutic, I somewhat think it is the opposite of that.
The other kind of artists who "have to" is the genius snobs who I'm sure at least I wish I could be: the ones compelled to create something because they know they will do it better than anyone else, and worse, they are right.
I believe Kasher, Oberst, even Jenny Lewis at one time might have almost gotten there, or do at least for their respective genre -- but really I think more of the French Nouveau Vague filmmakers. It is so interesting that they studied film on their own only to become critics and then be like, "Screw this, we'll make our own movies, and they'll rule."
I feel the same way about Quinton Tarantino here. I guess from this also comes a pure love for the artform, where it's not just about expressing emotions, hoping someone will get it; but it's also about technique, form, style, content, effects -- creating memories. Making history, you know?
*UPDATE: I changed my mind. I just Googled that Bright Eyes/Son, Ambulance song, and am once again amazed and impressed at the title. Wow. Still relates to what I said about Kasher, though. Just sayin'. Also, it's a source of light.*
Labels: Bright Eyes, Conor Oberst, Cursive, Music, Tim Kasher
