The Antlers - Hospice, Pt. II

Now we return, faithful and valiant readers, to complete our journey through The Antlers' Hospice

Hospice (Tracks 6-10), by The Antlers


http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=CE46CAF7437867A4
 
Thirteen, or Sylvia Speaks Ambient wash left over from Bear turns into waves, and then dissipates. After a moment of silence we realize we are in a large room with a piano as Sylvia pleads "Pull me out. Can't you stop all this from happening? Close the doors and keep them out." A harmony vocal is added for the second verse, but it feels more like it's a layering of repeated commands rather than a second person. "Dig me out. Couldn't you have kept all this from happening. Dig me out from under our house." Forgiving the prologue, this is the shortest song on the album, but it's the one that tells the most. It's the most important song on the album and the one that points out the elephant in the room.

What are we really talking about here? What are we really experiencing through this album? The album is not literally about a hospice worker and patient relationship, but rather a relationship through the guise of a hospice worker and patient. The cancer is the relationship, and it's symptoms the way that Sylvia behaves towards the protagonist, and even though our protagonist is trying as hard as he can to save Sylvia, and Sylvia wants nothing more than to be saved, there is no way out. The deeper our protagonist goes in, the more he loves Sylvia, but also the deeper he goes, the more he is poisoned. It is evident, that eventually, and through a lot of pain, that this will not work out.

Two, or I Would Have Saved Her If I Could Epiphanies feel like they come out of no where, even when you see all the steps. It's as though one is filling out a really good connect the dots picture where the picture is completely obscured until the last line is laid down. Ideas become cemented like stills from movies. click.

The first line of this song is "In the middle of the night I was sleeping sitting up, when a doctor came to tell me 'Enough is enough.'" click. "He brought me out into the hall (I could have sworn it was haunted), and told me something that I didn't know that I wanted to hear: That there was nothing I could do to save you, the choir's gonna sing, and this thing is gonna kill you." 'Something that I didn't know I wanted to hear.' click. 'There was nothing I could do to save you.' click. 'This thing is gonna kill you.' click, print, put it in a frame. It's not an easy realization. Our protagonist likens it to glass raining down on him opening up newly healed scars.

At this inopportune moment he hears Sylvia howling and goes to try to comfort her. Our accompaniment of guitar becomes more full, adding electric guitar and drums. She mentions a dream, a recollection, and then we get "Daddy was an asshole, he fucked you up, built the gears in your head, now he greases them up." After this verse the texture thickens and we get more keys and guitar.

"Tell me when you think that we became so unhappy, wearing silver rings with nobody clapping." Have you ever been the one not clapping? I've been the one not clapping more often than I'd like to admit. Unfortunately there's a kind of blinders that come with a relationship where one can't see things from the outside and they don't notice things get bad, or a sense of righteousness keeps pulling them back. As a friend, all you can do is watch and be there when they fall. A sampling of the following lyrics: "When we moved here together we were so disappointed, sleeping out of tune with our dreams disjointed. ...but I didn't mind the things you threw, the phones I deflected. I didn't mind you blaming me for your mistakes, I just held you in the door frame through all of the earthquakes." I took it. I took it, for you. Our protagonist is just as much to blame as Sylvia. He knows this is bad, but in some way he views it as noble to stay. Real men stick it out. This is my girl and I love her, so if this is what I have to do, this is what I have to do.

"But you packed up your clothes in that back every night, and I would grab at your ankles (what a pitiful sight.) But over a year, I stopped trying to stop you from stomping out that door, coming back like you always do." And eventually there is no fight left. You just, move, and be. Exist, but at a slower pace. Things lose color, life loses energy. You're the one sick now.

The texture has grown bigger and bigger, but it breaks on the next verse which culminates on this lyric: "So there's no open doors, and there's way to get through, there's no other witnesses, just us two." The texture starts to build, including the addition of a second vocal to a verse about 'two.' "Two ways to tell the story. ...Two silver rings on our fingers in a hurry. ... Two people believing that I'm the one to blame, two different voices coming out of your mouth, while I'm too cold to care and too sick to shout. "

The texture approaches it's thickest as we enter the chorus/dreamscape from earlier in the song, and when that is finished, the song cuts on it's resolve and morphs into an ghostly reverb filled pair of moans slowly pulsing and dying.

Shiva, or Portacaths Switched A simple, distorted keyboard line characterizes "Shiva." By distorted I don't mean overdriven guitar style distortion, but a misrepresentation of the sound due to holes punched throughout until it barely represents its original self. Soon we are accompanied by guitar, piano, and drums in the cyclical 'three' feel.

"Suddenly every machine stopped at once, and the monitors beeped the last time. Hundreds of thousands of hospital beds, and all of them empty but mine." The sickness finally got the best of us. "The bed was misshaped, and awkward and tall, and clearly intended for you."

"You checked yourself out when you put me to bed, and tore that old band off your wrist. But you came back to see me for a minute or less, and left me your ring in my fist. My hair started growing, my face became yours, my femur was breaking in half. The sensation was scissors too much to scream, so instead, I just started to laugh."

Alone. Not that we weren't before, but now I am.

Wake, or Letting People In There is a reverence to this song. It feels like a hallowed secret. As listener we play the role of the priest in confession. In the distance we hear the choir, but right up to our ear we hear the whisper. Church is an accurate setting as well for this aptly titled tune, because the song has as much to do with waking up as it does with honoring the dead.

"With the door closed, shades drawn, the world shrinks. Let's open up those blinds." That same tunnel vision that keeps one from seeing the situation they are in, eventually closes them off from everything else. "Now that everyone's an enemy, my heart sinks. Let's put away those claws." Because I'm still the one to blame. I ruined everything, and I left. It's my burden. "It was easier to lock the doors and kill the phones than to show my skin, because the hardest thing is never to repent for someone else, it's letting people in." I can apologize for everything that was out of my control. I can take the blame for something that someone else did. I just can't tell you why.

"Well you can come inside, unlock the door, take off your shoes, but this might take all night to explain to you I would have walked out those sliding doors, but the timing never seemed right." It never does, and would you have, really? "When your helicopter came and tried to lift me out, I put it's rope around my neck, and after that you didn't bother with the airlift or the rescue. You knew just what to expect." A true friend won't hang you, and while they'll try to dissuade you, they have to let you hang yourself. "We can't rely on photographs and visitation time, but I just don't know where to begin. I wanna bust down the door if you're willing to forgive. I've got the keys, I'm letting people in." A good friend will also come back, be there when it's time.

The music cuts back to a descending lament piano line with a feedback accompaniment. As we land, the ground feels unstable with low, dark chords, and we are given the morals of the album, a code by which to live, something to remember in troubled and trying times:

"Don't be scared to speak,
Don't speak with someone's tooth,
Don't bargain when you're weak,
Don't take that sharp abuse.
Some patients can't be saved, but that burden's not on you."


The album builds to it's apex on with continuous repeat of the following statement

"Don't ever let anyone tell you you deserve that."

Epilogue, or Sylvia Alive In Nightmares In a recap of "Bear" we take a look at our protagonist after some time has passed. We find that he is haunted by his past with Sylvia. The second verse brings us into a nightmare. "So I lie down against your back, until we're both back in the hospital, but now it's not a cancer ward, we're sleeping in the morgue. Men and women in blue and white they are singing all around you, with heavy shovels holding earth. You're being buried to your neck in that hospital bed, being buried quite alive now. I'm truing to dig you out but all you want is to be buried there together. You're screaming, and cursing, and angry, and hurting me, and then smiling, and crying, and apologizing." It never stops.

"I've woken up, I'm in our bed, but there's no breathing body there beside me. Someone must have taken you while I was stuck asleep. But I know better as my eyes adjust, You've been gone for quite awhile now, and I don't work there in the hospital, they had to let me go." Because I could no longer take care of hospice patients, could no longer be a grief mop, no longer pour everything into something that will leave me, and then haunt me."

..."But you return to me at night, just when I think I may have fallen asleep. Your face is up against mine, and I'm too terrified to speak. You're screaming, and cursing, and angry, and hurting me, and then smiling, and crying, and apologizing."

The music runs headlong into a beautifully overdriven and processed guitar line that slowly fades, and ...

There you have it, a precious, and dark, and painful view into the wounded mind of a man in an abusive relationship told through the heroic view of a hospice worker and his patient.

I hope you enjoyed this in depth look at a full album. We're quickly approaching the one year anniversary of suicide watch songs, and with any luck we'll be here again next November with another in depth analysis of a dark album. Please if you have anything to add feel free to comment here, at suicidesongs@communistdaycarecenter.net, or at the new forum over at communistdaycarecenter.net/Forum, where I invite you to take your own interpretation of the bonus track from Hospice, "Sylvia, An Introduction"

Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7sinGefeOg

Lyrics: http://theantlershospice.blogspot.com/2008/06/lyrics.html