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Modest Mouse is an old band. Most of you reading this blog will already know about the differences between newer and older Modest Mouse, but for those of you that don't we're going to take a trip back to their masterpiece The Lonesome Crowded West, with "Bankrupt On Selling"
"Bankrupt On Selling" by Modest Mouse from The Lonesome Crowded West
I remember first hearing Modest Mouse circa '99 or 2000, at the end of or just after my stay in high school, which was already pretty far along in the band's career. It was a surprise to me a few years later, in 2004, when "Float On" became a huge hit. Truthfully, the band had fallen completely off my radar. I remember specifically in my experience as a private music instructor when a student came in to learn a song by this "great new band Modest Mouse." Ha, new!
This truly heralded in a new era for Modest Mouse. They had traversed the gap between independent band and indie band. At the same time, there was a fundamental change in the mood of their music. Modest Mouse is certainly known for being a dark band. After deciding that I wanted to cover a Modest Mouse tune, it took me quite a while to settle on this one due to the vast amount of depressing material. I don't think I have to go farther than the album titles to illustrate this. Titles like The Lonesome Crowded West, This Is A Long Drive For Someone With Nothing To Think About, and Building Nothing Out Of Something delve deeply into the helplessness of life the music conveys. From Good News For People That Love Bad News (the album that featured "Float On") on, Modest Mouse changed their view on life. From this point on the music is hopeful instead of hopeless. One needs but look to the first lyric of "Float On," to see the change: "I backed my car into a cop car the other day, well he just drove off, sometimes life's ok."
"Bankrupt On Selling" feels just about as far away from "Float On" as can be. It is a texturally sparse recording with two guitars and a vocal. The recording itself sounds distant, or like it's in the background of a coffeehouse in a movie from the late nineties. The chord progression remains the same throughout the song with a circular feel that builds on it's lingering remains.
The vocals open with "Well all the apostles are sittin' in swings sayin' 'I'd sell off my savior for a set of new rings and some sandals with the style of straps that cling best to the era.'" Immediately we are faced with an absurd situation. How could an angel sell of their savior? And for what? Rings and sandals? Isn't this a human trait? Certainly a man must sell his soul to the devil for the ability to write amazingly beautiful yet utterly depressing, but an angel is not allowed to sell his savior. An angel isn't allowed to want material things. This paints all too human a light on angels; all too dark.
"So all of the businessers in their unlimited hell where they buy and they sell and they sell all their trash to each other, but they're sick of it all and they're bankrupt on selling." Businessers, businessmen, businesswomen, are all human. What creates this hell? Is it the situation of buying and selling? Wait, what is being bought and sold? Don't we all do this? Don't we all buy and sell trash to each other? Is it not hell? Do we not create this hell ourselves?
The subtlety of the comparison of man and angel, and heaven and hell is sly and couth. We return now to heaven: "And all of the angels, they'd sell off your soul for a new set of wings and anything gold." Wait, my soul? MY soul? Don't I have control over my soul? I mean I know that trading it for a doughnut is a bad idea, but it's my choice to do so, isn't it? And an angel could and would trade my intangible soul for wings and gold? It hurts to be traded like commodity. "They remember the people they loved, their old friends. And I've seen through them all, seen through them all, and seen through most everything." Their friends are just like they are. Fake and phony, and just like they are, but we've finally got to meet our protagonist, who has seen through them all.
He who has seen through them all is telling us a story, he is expounding on his belief. He continues "All the people you knew were the actors." Oh. He's not talking about angels, he's talking about the illusion of good people. He's not talking about heaven, he's talking about the ideal. He's not talking about hell, he's talking about cold hard reality. "All the people you knew were the actors." He's talking about man. He's talking about you and me.
"Well I'll go to college and I'll learn some big words and I'll talk real loud. Goddamn right I'll be heard. You'll remember the guy who said all those big words he must have learned in college." Our protagonist is an idealist. We are all idealists. We all want to make a change, we all want to be important. We all want to be remembered. He will fight to not be the kind of person he has described before.
We continue, "and it took a long time until I came clean with myself. I'd grown clean out of love with my lover. I still love her, loved her more when she used to be sober and I was kinder." Our protagonist did not reach his goals. Our protagonist is a hypocrite. Our protagonist is not always rational and is driven by desire. Our protagonist is us, and we are all the same.
Please comment or give suggestions here or email to suicidesongs@communistdaycarecenter.net
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Sue's Last Ride
"Sue's Last Ride" by Dirty Three from Horse Stories
More than a lot of years ago I was at a rehearsal with a local singer/songwriter that I have played drums for on and off throughout the years. At the end of the rehearsal, said singer/songwriter handed me a CD and said "Have you heard of these guys? You've got to check them out. The Rolling Stones rated them as the best band in the world." To clarify that last statement, yes he did mean the band. I'm not sure where he got that information from, but apparently the Rolling Stones meant it. I should also state that he mentioned that as more of a note on where he got hip to them and not in an ultra Rolling Stones fan check out my lips tattoo kind of way.
The album was Horse Stories which I liked quite a lot, and this song jumped out at me right away as my favorite from the album. Fast forward a few years and I get to see Dirty Three at the Magic Stick in Detroit. For those that do not know the venue, the Magic Stick is one of those 'just small enough to have a bar, but not an upstairs' kind of places. If a group sells out a Magic Stick size venue, their next move is to an old church turned venue, and then to an old theater, etc. This place was pretty packed, and rightfully so, as the last time they were in the United States was seven years prior, when the guy that turned me on to them saw them at a now defunct venue by the name of Griff's Grill, which was a step or two down from the Magic Stick level in the venue food chain.
That night at the Magic Stick, Dirty Three performed "Sue's Last Ride." Warren Ellis, the violinist of the group, gave a similar speech to the one in the video above, but implied a bit more detail to the story. Sue was a friend who had died in a car and was there for two weeks before anyone found her. Ellis implied, or at least I took it, that Sue's last ride was those two weeks, alone in that car with nothing to do but atone for her life.
The song starts slowly, quietly, like you're waking up. Senses come into play, in and out, eventually they begin to focus. And then slowly, a realization that you are unsure where you are. Then you realize, you're in the car, which is perplexing. Your heart races for a moment. You're not sure why you're in the car. You take a deep breath to steady yourself, and then you realize, you're dead.
And you panic, and you can't breath, and you're not sure if you're supposed to breath, but it feels like your drowning, and eventually you realize that you're not going to die, because you're dead.
And then time starts to pass, and you start to remember, and it's hard, because inevitably it all leads up to right now. Every moment of it leads to now. And of course that means that some of it you'd rather not deal with even though those are the things you need to deal with.
And it builds, and it builds. It's like your past is tormenting you. Bigger and faster and more intense. Everything is flowing through you now. And just when you think you can't take it anymore, someone finds the car, and opens the door, and finds you, inside. dead.
And you get out of the car, and head on your way.
I don't know if Sue committed suicide. I kind of don't think so. I get the vibe that she had an accident and that she was hard to find. I however had a friend that did commit suicide in a car, so from time to time I think of him in relation to this song. I'm not a spiritual man, I do not believe in an afterlife, but, if I'm wrong, I would like to believe that people do have to atone for their life in a visceral painful way. I hope that we all have to face the parts of ourselves that we bury deep inside and build walls around, and I hope that if there is an afterlife we all enter it through catharsis and new without all the baggage we carry around during life.
As always feel free to comment here or send an email to suicidesongs@communistdaycarecenter.net
More than a lot of years ago I was at a rehearsal with a local singer/songwriter that I have played drums for on and off throughout the years. At the end of the rehearsal, said singer/songwriter handed me a CD and said "Have you heard of these guys? You've got to check them out. The Rolling Stones rated them as the best band in the world." To clarify that last statement, yes he did mean the band. I'm not sure where he got that information from, but apparently the Rolling Stones meant it. I should also state that he mentioned that as more of a note on where he got hip to them and not in an ultra Rolling Stones fan check out my lips tattoo kind of way.
The album was Horse Stories which I liked quite a lot, and this song jumped out at me right away as my favorite from the album. Fast forward a few years and I get to see Dirty Three at the Magic Stick in Detroit. For those that do not know the venue, the Magic Stick is one of those 'just small enough to have a bar, but not an upstairs' kind of places. If a group sells out a Magic Stick size venue, their next move is to an old church turned venue, and then to an old theater, etc. This place was pretty packed, and rightfully so, as the last time they were in the United States was seven years prior, when the guy that turned me on to them saw them at a now defunct venue by the name of Griff's Grill, which was a step or two down from the Magic Stick level in the venue food chain.
That night at the Magic Stick, Dirty Three performed "Sue's Last Ride." Warren Ellis, the violinist of the group, gave a similar speech to the one in the video above, but implied a bit more detail to the story. Sue was a friend who had died in a car and was there for two weeks before anyone found her. Ellis implied, or at least I took it, that Sue's last ride was those two weeks, alone in that car with nothing to do but atone for her life.
The song starts slowly, quietly, like you're waking up. Senses come into play, in and out, eventually they begin to focus. And then slowly, a realization that you are unsure where you are. Then you realize, you're in the car, which is perplexing. Your heart races for a moment. You're not sure why you're in the car. You take a deep breath to steady yourself, and then you realize, you're dead.
And you panic, and you can't breath, and you're not sure if you're supposed to breath, but it feels like your drowning, and eventually you realize that you're not going to die, because you're dead.
And then time starts to pass, and you start to remember, and it's hard, because inevitably it all leads up to right now. Every moment of it leads to now. And of course that means that some of it you'd rather not deal with even though those are the things you need to deal with.
And it builds, and it builds. It's like your past is tormenting you. Bigger and faster and more intense. Everything is flowing through you now. And just when you think you can't take it anymore, someone finds the car, and opens the door, and finds you, inside. dead.
And you get out of the car, and head on your way.
I don't know if Sue committed suicide. I kind of don't think so. I get the vibe that she had an accident and that she was hard to find. I however had a friend that did commit suicide in a car, so from time to time I think of him in relation to this song. I'm not a spiritual man, I do not believe in an afterlife, but, if I'm wrong, I would like to believe that people do have to atone for their life in a visceral painful way. I hope that we all have to face the parts of ourselves that we bury deep inside and build walls around, and I hope that if there is an afterlife we all enter it through catharsis and new without all the baggage we carry around during life.
As always feel free to comment here or send an email to suicidesongs@communistdaycarecenter.net
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