I didn't really start this post at 12:53, you see. I started it a few minutes before, when I heard a song called "Red Bandana" for the first time. Or maybe I started it months ago when the wonder and lonely passion of "Head Case" first met my ears.
This was supposed to be a post about two songs. I now feel like it should be about one song and one album.
Most songs that you hear have a typical structure, you see. At its most basic, it goes verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. I discovered this structure as a young one by listening to the music of Adele. I didn't know the names of any of the parts, but I noticed the pattern and the different feelings of each of them. Sometimes there's a third verse instead of a bridge, sometimes no bridge at all, sometimes it ends with the bridge, you get the point. There's a reason for the popularity of this structure: it works. It tends to hold the attention well and is flexible enough to build tension according to the needs of the artist, usually slowly culminating in the bridge.
But sometimes, that structure is thrown out the window by artists who typically use it. Because sometimes, the song demands something else. It's too raw, too powerful, to be contained in that useful, yet tame, box.
We'll start with Cody Jinks.
"Head Case"
I do believe I cried when I first heard this song. It comes right at the end of his album, Lifers, and I had heard it referred to as the best song he's ever recorded. From what I've heard, that assessment is correct.
The thing about irregular song structure is that it has to be necessary, and it has to be true to the song and to the artist. Cody Jinks doesn't waste his time on a chorus in this song. He doesn't care to repeat anything, until the end, when he has nothing more to do but cry the same thing out again and again. He's getting it all out, and it's one tortured, confessional flood of words.
I know it's hard to find the words so often standing face to face.
Sometimes it takes a thin white sheet to put things into place.
The things that I could never say come flooding out somehow upon these lines.
That's your introduction. That tells you a little bit about the nature of this song. And then we go right into it.
I'm still fighting the same battles I've been fighting all these years.
A dream is not a dream unless you're living with the fear.
What they say will be forgotten; all that's left will be for naught,
And why?
The first line brings up an important point: all these years, he says. Both of the artists I'm talking about tonight have been doing this music thing for years. They know how to use traditional song structure; but they also know when not to use it and how.
But what is he talking about here? A dream? And who is they?
Singers. Songwriters. People like him, who have devoted their lives to music. He's talking about the fear that what he writes, what he's poured his heart and soul into, will be forgotten and come to nothing. Why? he asks, and doesn't wait for an answer.
And it's been a long time, Lord, since I sat down and had a cry.
It's sometimes overwhelming, and I can't tell you why,
But I remember Jackson singing 'Doctor, doctor, please, my eyes.'
That last line is a reference to Jackson Browne's song, "Doctor My Eyes". It's about having looked at all kinds of terrible things without crying or feeling pain about them, thinking at the time that that's good, and then coming to a point where he can't cry, and he asks what's wrong with himself. I think that Cody is saying, he knows what the consequences of not crying about things are, so he's going to sit down and have a good cry, even though he doesn't quite understand why he's doing it.
Then he dives back in even deeper.
My heroes, they're all dying or they're sitting in a cell
Due to years of medicating minds that hurt so well.
There's a thin line, don't you see, between genius and insanity.
Which am I?
We've all seen what's happened to brilliant musical minds. Jinks is approaching it from the perspective of someone who's frightened that he's on the same path.
Then we have the real kicker.
One thing that scares the hell in me is living with mortality.
And worryin' that I'm insane, talkin' to a God unseen
Must surely make me crazy; but crazy's what I'll be
'Til I'm gone.
Because you see, Jinks isn't talking to us here, or to himself. He's talking to God. And what he's really scared of isn't just insanity. It's death. Not just the death of his body, but the death of his memory, and the only way he can come to terms with this is by talking to God. He can't believe in ultimate death. He just can't. Life has to go on, he says, and even if he's crazy for believing that, he's going to continue.
The problem is, he doesn't quite feel like he can reach God. He talks to him, he believes in him, but God just seems so far right now, and Jinks just feels so alone.
And I'll scream out to the sun and to the moon and to the stars.
I'll scream until my voice finds you no matter where you are.
I'll scream until I've got no breath, and all that's left to take is death,
And I'm done.
Listen to the song for yourself. Listen to the ending, which I haven't written out here.
There's not really a satisfying conclusion, is there? He doesn't get answers. Instead, it ends with his resolution to keep crying out to God even until he dies. That's the only way to make sense of things. That's the only way he can cope.
The structure perfectly matches the song, and it hurts a little to listen to, because it's just so true to experience. So much of the time, we don't get answers. We just have to keep going.
It's 2:06, and far too late to write the rest of this post. Someday, I'll follow it up.
Right now, absorb that, and yes, definitely listen to the song. Then read a few Psalms. They're inspired, and generally end with the answers.
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