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Last year I wrote about Jason Lytle's "Rollin' Home Alone." I went through my entire review with my own opinion and then disclosed that Lytle had a completely different intent with the motive of the song. Today I want to look at a song that fooled not only me, but an entire nation. From an album now twenty years old, let's look at R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion."
"Losing My Religion" by R.E.M. from Out Of Time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if-UzXIQ5vw
Note: Embedding the Grammy Award winning music video was disabled. This link goes to it.
"Ohhhh life," Two words in and we already feel the weight of what we are about to undertake. They are more sighed than sung. "It's bigger. It's bigger than you, and you are not me, the lengths that I will go to, the distance in your eyes." Who is 'you?' Whoever they are, we have drawn a distinct wall between two parties. There is an established opposition between the tenacity of our protagonist and the distance of our antagonist. "Oh no, I've said too much. I set it up." Somewhat covertly, I might add. The issue is being brought to light by our protagonist, but under the guise of motivation by the antagonist.
"That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight losing my religion." Losing faith by definition is world changing. When one rejects something they previously regarded as an altruism it is different than changing your mind about a fact. There remains the issue that that person's basic understanding of the universe is now different, and was incorrect until recently. One could say that that person is now living in a different world with different rules. Any questions, especially those dealing with self-importance, self-worth, and placement in this world, were based on a separate set of rules, and have to be answered again. It's so much easier to hold on, but once one heads down that path there is no turning back. "Trying to keep up with you and I don't know if I can do it. Oh no I've said too much." This time, "I haven't said enough," in the past. "I thought that I heard you laughing. I thought that I heard you sing. I think I thought I saw you try," but I can't be sure about these things, or anything anymore.
"Every whisper of every waking hour I'm choosing my confessions." Our protagonist is consumed by guilt, not only from having many sins to confess, but also from picking and choosing them, a dichotomous situation to be in as a divine entity would know all of the sins anyway. "Trying to keep an eye on you like a hurt, lost, and blinded fool." Will betraying a character you deem to be fictitious come back to haunt one? If one is hurt in this situation, then by their own admission were they not hurt by themselves? Has our protagonist really lost their faith? Are they really a non-believer of God or have they just turned their back?
"Consider this, the hint of the century. Consider this, the slip that brought me to my knees failed. What if all these fantasies com flailing around. Now I've said too much." Our protagonist is worried about the repercussions of an angry God, yet at the same time condemns God. What if that slip that brought me to my knees failed? What if you failed me, God?
We get another taste of the chorus tag, "I thought that I heard you laughing," before entering a musical interlude. The acoustic mix with the mandolin is a great sound, and certainly it's beauty and unexpectedness is what propelled the success of this song and the album it was on. However, the real drive in this song, the real hook, is the bassline. Listen right after the lyric "I thought that I heard you sing." Right there, that bass climb is the money moment for this song.
We return, "But that was just a dream. That was just a dream." Then another chorus and another "That was just a dream, dream." Giving up, giving in, moving forward no matter the cost. The punishment doesn't matter when the world is so bleak.
At least that's what we all thought. We thought we got a dark insight into a man losing his last morsel of faith and with it his last shred of hope. However, R.E.M.'s singer and lyricist Michael Stipe has a very different view of the song. The term 'losing my religion' is a southern expression for losing their temper, for being at the end of one's rope. Stipe is noted as conceiving the song about unrequited love. But switch all those references to God to being about a person, does it really change all that much? We are still left with a person who believed one thing fully and has had to accept the fact that it is not there. We are still looking at a man at the end of his rope. Isn't that how we interpreted it anyway?
Feel free to comment, suggest, or complain here on the blog, or at suicidesongs@communistdaycarecenter.net
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
There Is A Light
Oh sounding board for off topic subjects, where would I be without you?
There is a separation between popular music and art music. However, it is important to see that the art music of today evolved from the popular music of yesterday. At one point, people would take in classical music in the same way that they take in hip-hop today. A little over a hundred years ago, when we saw the invention of jazz, it started as the music of delinquents, something that 'legit' musicians would play in after-hours clubs. Now one would be hard to find a school that doesn't have a jazz band program (that is, where music programs haven't been cut), and the genre is known commonly as "America's Classical Music," a statement that is wholly insulting in it's own right, but it does show the change in the way we view jazz.
I propose that we are at the beginning of the movement of rock and roll music into the realm of art music. My first evidence is actually rock's declining popularity. While rock and roll held the top spot in popular music for many years, as of recent times it has been more and more overshadowed by the hip-hop movement. This can be looked to as akin to the way that the jazz movement was overshadowed by rock and roll. A new musical style evolves, develops over a few generations and then a new style evolves as it the first style gets elevated to being art music. Popular rock is moving closer and drawing more influence from the hip-hop genre. If it's heavy rock then we're getting more rap intertwined. If it's more song based, we are getting much more computer composition and synthesized tones. Rock is obviously changing, evolving. I propose that the movement to art music is driven by a subgenre coincidentally known as 'Post-Rock.'
Post-Rock tends to have longer, more thematic songs, wherein the melodic ideas develop over a longer period of time than standard song driven rock. There is a heavy emphasis on tonecraft. Instruments are used more to blend into the texture than to stand out of the texture. To do this we often find instruments not usually found in a rock band mixed in with the standard rock set up. Don't confuse this with Progressive Rock. What progressive rock did was to take elements from classical and bring it to rock. I have to iterate that what is emerging is a new genre, not a retooling of another. Classical and jazz sound different from each other, don't they? Today we are going to look at one of the current front-runners of post-rock.
"There Is A Light" by Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra from Kollaps Tradixionales
Part I
Part II
Part I: http://www.youtube.com/embed/dVa8J6hS3Fg?rel=0
Part II: http://www.youtube.com/embed/wuR10jyxYp4?rel=0
Note: The song is not supposed to be broken into two separate parts, but is too long to post as a whole on youtube. Kollaps Tradixionales comes as a two 10" vinyl album, and this as the lead off track takes up all of side one.
I've said it before, but as we open I feel as though we are in a church. We're not, but it oozes that kind of sacredness. The guitar speaks like a sermon, it's tremolo pulsing around it's message. Very quietly an organ listens in the background. "Hang on darling. Chant aloud. This boys lost his thunder in the dirty clouds." On 'clouds' enters Silver Mt. Zion's two violinists intertwining beautiful call and response counterpoint into the tapestry of the song.
"Dull white starlight, pale as the morning falls away. The devil each dawn, and flat greys upon. We're torn asunder neath his gaze. So, c'mon ye children, if there's one thing we know, it's that them gathering clouds are swinging low." We are a tired but proud people, oppressed and destitute. We have a secret though, and that is that we are stronger than those mounted against us. At the second half of this stanza a trumpet along with alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones sneaks into the mix. Our group is growing in numbers.
"So don't you be precious. Man, don't you be meek. There ain't no damn glory in the long retreat. So go call the fuzz. They'll shine their lights on us. We've been building in the dark. There's so many of us. Illuminated and proud, there's so many of us." Shine those lights, we will no longer hide in the dark, and let the battle ensue. "There ain't no truth but the no truth but the no truth, yeah! Ain't no thing but the nothing, but the nothing, yeah! Ain't no fall but the long fall but the long fall, yeah! And there ain't no light but the true light is a dim light, yeah! But I've been waiting and longing for that light to fall all over me."
The song breaks at that moment of realization, and it's like we are in that battle scene in the movie when everything slows down because the hero needs to find someone, or something, or they are about to be killed.
"Six and six parsons and he doth proclaim that the best little bits of us misfits and strays make a light in the night that needs to be shamed." Wait, but that means, "all for some, none for all, and all fallen the same," that we lost. "And we surrender the stage to those pale horse riders."
But I won't end my quest so easily. What was this you say, a light that must be shamed? Shamed!? "Go forth and get down with a mighty fist and retarded crown. Do the one-step, the two-step sweet jubilee and show me the light goddamn and lay me down in a bed full of rain."
And it's over. Broken and spiritless we retreat home and back to routine. Nothing ever changes. Anything I have done hasn't made a difference. Yet those words echo in my head "There is a light."
"Yeah shit is bleak. We've seen it and worried. Our timid leaps get knee deep and buried. Entire weeks where I swear I can barely rise. Electrical fits, tantrums and prayers. Pride undoes what mercy repairs. The pits of this toss a match to it and start again."
We spiral deeper into the philosophy of the dark. "The absence of light is its own stubborn light. No light is the true light, and there is no light so there is a light so there is no light so there is a light."
"Though we've been denied too much hope in our lives let tonight be the night when it ends." We've all got to find a place for ourselves in this world. We've all got to believe that we can claw our way there. We all need hope. In this blog I've always tried to find music that is hopeless. This piece is not. "Tell me there is a light" This song is not about suicide. "There is a light." It's about a suicide mission.
As always feel free to comment here or drop me an email at suicidesongs@communistdaycarecenter.net. I didn't really lay out my whole argument about the elevation of rock to the level of art music, so I'd love to talk about that or anything else related to this blog if you so desire.
There is a separation between popular music and art music. However, it is important to see that the art music of today evolved from the popular music of yesterday. At one point, people would take in classical music in the same way that they take in hip-hop today. A little over a hundred years ago, when we saw the invention of jazz, it started as the music of delinquents, something that 'legit' musicians would play in after-hours clubs. Now one would be hard to find a school that doesn't have a jazz band program (that is, where music programs haven't been cut), and the genre is known commonly as "America's Classical Music," a statement that is wholly insulting in it's own right, but it does show the change in the way we view jazz.
I propose that we are at the beginning of the movement of rock and roll music into the realm of art music. My first evidence is actually rock's declining popularity. While rock and roll held the top spot in popular music for many years, as of recent times it has been more and more overshadowed by the hip-hop movement. This can be looked to as akin to the way that the jazz movement was overshadowed by rock and roll. A new musical style evolves, develops over a few generations and then a new style evolves as it the first style gets elevated to being art music. Popular rock is moving closer and drawing more influence from the hip-hop genre. If it's heavy rock then we're getting more rap intertwined. If it's more song based, we are getting much more computer composition and synthesized tones. Rock is obviously changing, evolving. I propose that the movement to art music is driven by a subgenre coincidentally known as 'Post-Rock.'
Post-Rock tends to have longer, more thematic songs, wherein the melodic ideas develop over a longer period of time than standard song driven rock. There is a heavy emphasis on tonecraft. Instruments are used more to blend into the texture than to stand out of the texture. To do this we often find instruments not usually found in a rock band mixed in with the standard rock set up. Don't confuse this with Progressive Rock. What progressive rock did was to take elements from classical and bring it to rock. I have to iterate that what is emerging is a new genre, not a retooling of another. Classical and jazz sound different from each other, don't they? Today we are going to look at one of the current front-runners of post-rock.
"There Is A Light" by Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra from Kollaps Tradixionales
Part I
Part II
Part I: http://www.youtube.com/embed/dVa8J6hS3Fg?rel=0
Part II: http://www.youtube.com/embed/wuR10jyxYp4?rel=0
Note: The song is not supposed to be broken into two separate parts, but is too long to post as a whole on youtube. Kollaps Tradixionales comes as a two 10" vinyl album, and this as the lead off track takes up all of side one.
I've said it before, but as we open I feel as though we are in a church. We're not, but it oozes that kind of sacredness. The guitar speaks like a sermon, it's tremolo pulsing around it's message. Very quietly an organ listens in the background. "Hang on darling. Chant aloud. This boys lost his thunder in the dirty clouds." On 'clouds' enters Silver Mt. Zion's two violinists intertwining beautiful call and response counterpoint into the tapestry of the song.
"Dull white starlight, pale as the morning falls away. The devil each dawn, and flat greys upon. We're torn asunder neath his gaze. So, c'mon ye children, if there's one thing we know, it's that them gathering clouds are swinging low." We are a tired but proud people, oppressed and destitute. We have a secret though, and that is that we are stronger than those mounted against us. At the second half of this stanza a trumpet along with alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones sneaks into the mix. Our group is growing in numbers.
"So don't you be precious. Man, don't you be meek. There ain't no damn glory in the long retreat. So go call the fuzz. They'll shine their lights on us. We've been building in the dark. There's so many of us. Illuminated and proud, there's so many of us." Shine those lights, we will no longer hide in the dark, and let the battle ensue. "There ain't no truth but the no truth but the no truth, yeah! Ain't no thing but the nothing, but the nothing, yeah! Ain't no fall but the long fall but the long fall, yeah! And there ain't no light but the true light is a dim light, yeah! But I've been waiting and longing for that light to fall all over me."
The song breaks at that moment of realization, and it's like we are in that battle scene in the movie when everything slows down because the hero needs to find someone, or something, or they are about to be killed.
"Six and six parsons and he doth proclaim that the best little bits of us misfits and strays make a light in the night that needs to be shamed." Wait, but that means, "all for some, none for all, and all fallen the same," that we lost. "And we surrender the stage to those pale horse riders."
But I won't end my quest so easily. What was this you say, a light that must be shamed? Shamed!? "Go forth and get down with a mighty fist and retarded crown. Do the one-step, the two-step sweet jubilee and show me the light goddamn and lay me down in a bed full of rain."
And it's over. Broken and spiritless we retreat home and back to routine. Nothing ever changes. Anything I have done hasn't made a difference. Yet those words echo in my head "There is a light."
"Yeah shit is bleak. We've seen it and worried. Our timid leaps get knee deep and buried. Entire weeks where I swear I can barely rise. Electrical fits, tantrums and prayers. Pride undoes what mercy repairs. The pits of this toss a match to it and start again."
We spiral deeper into the philosophy of the dark. "The absence of light is its own stubborn light. No light is the true light, and there is no light so there is a light so there is no light so there is a light."
"Though we've been denied too much hope in our lives let tonight be the night when it ends." We've all got to find a place for ourselves in this world. We've all got to believe that we can claw our way there. We all need hope. In this blog I've always tried to find music that is hopeless. This piece is not. "Tell me there is a light" This song is not about suicide. "There is a light." It's about a suicide mission.
As always feel free to comment here or drop me an email at suicidesongs@communistdaycarecenter.net. I didn't really lay out my whole argument about the elevation of rock to the level of art music, so I'd love to talk about that or anything else related to this blog if you so desire.
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