Falling Farther In - October Project
In early 2009, I was visiting a friend, who took that opportunity to load up my laptop with several hours’ worth of music she thought I might enjoy. She sent me home with it, with no instructions beyond to explore and appreciate, which I did. When the laptop eventually went the way of all flesh, I lost all that data, and this album was the first thing I sought to replace from the collection.
October Project was an utterly unique band that existed in the 90s just long enough to release two albums. The music has elements of pop and rock, but with a depth of soulfulness that most examples of either do not quite reach. Vocalist Mary Fahl’s voice is deep and rich, and yet light and pure and full of joy. And the lyrics are something entirely unmatched.
During the year that I discovered and fell in love with October Project, I was also getting heavily into Christian mysticism, and as far as I could tell the songs on this album are about nothing else. This is never more true than for the first track, Deep As You Go, which to me is the definitive song not just of the album, but of the band. It describes a love so deep and profound that it is compared to drowning:
Somehow I need to love you
more than I need to breathe
Yet it’s not the desperate, clinging love that such self-obliteration usually implies. Instead, it’s a wholehearted and trusting love, one to gladly follow deep as it goes, no matter what. To me, that’s what mysticism is at its core, no matter what religion you believe in. During the year 2009, if I had a deeply spiritual experience, a song from this album was either playing or not far from my mind at the time.
I see the rest of the songs as variations on the same theme, but each quite unique and able to stand alone. And since mysticism is something best not expressed in words alone, I doubt a review of any length would do justice to my own experience. But the same is true of all music, isn’t it? And I’ve written ninety reviews so far.
Next: October Project
Monday, August 31, 2015
Thursday, August 27, 2015
All My CDs, pt 90: I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got
I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got - Sinead O’Conner
Here’s an album I pilfered from my mother’s collection (sorry) in my early teens. I remember just being bored with the music I had, but without the cash to buy more, so I found this on a shelf and put it on. I listened with my usual adolescent obsessiveness for a good few months, came to know many of the songs like they lived in my own heart, but never became curious about what else the artist had produced. Later, like so many other CDs I loved as a teenager, it fell by the wayside and I all but forgot it existed.
When I started listening to it again, after more than a decade, I found that the music was exactly as I remember it, and my enjoyment of it has neither changed nor decreased. It’s still as emotionally evocative, as variable in style and mood, and as good. The only real difference is that it’s not new anymore. I would have expected that so many years of experience, some of it directly relevant to the songs’ content, would change the way I relate to the music. Yet this has not been the case, even with the couple of breakup songs on the album.
The only possible exception is The Emperor’s New Clothes, which I enjoy about as much, but might be getting more appreciation out of the lyrics nowadays. No clue why, since I can’t pick out anything I particularly relate to in there.
My favorite track was and remains Feel So Different, which opens the album and isn’t topped by any that follow it. It begins with the spoken Serenity prayer (my first exposure to that particular prayer, back when I first played this album as a teenager). From there, it layers thickly portentous lyrics over a background of slowly-building strings, hinting at but never outright explaining some great personal revelation:
The whole time I’ve never seen
all I need was inside me
now I feel so different
It’s a total twelve-car pileup of cliches, I know, but I love it anyway. The vagueness makes it easy to just imagine that it’s about whatever’s making you feel so different, and that makes it easier to just get swept up in the emotionality of it. For some reason other songs that are similarly built just don’t do the same thing for me. Maybe because of how young I was when I encountered this one. Maybe because this is an especially well-crafted example of the technique. Or maybe, since this isn’t a popular song that gets played on the radio, I can relish the illusion that the song is mine alone.
Whatever the reason, I like the song. The rest of the album is okay, but doesn’t quite reach the same level with me.
Next: Falling Farther In
Here’s an album I pilfered from my mother’s collection (sorry) in my early teens. I remember just being bored with the music I had, but without the cash to buy more, so I found this on a shelf and put it on. I listened with my usual adolescent obsessiveness for a good few months, came to know many of the songs like they lived in my own heart, but never became curious about what else the artist had produced. Later, like so many other CDs I loved as a teenager, it fell by the wayside and I all but forgot it existed.
When I started listening to it again, after more than a decade, I found that the music was exactly as I remember it, and my enjoyment of it has neither changed nor decreased. It’s still as emotionally evocative, as variable in style and mood, and as good. The only real difference is that it’s not new anymore. I would have expected that so many years of experience, some of it directly relevant to the songs’ content, would change the way I relate to the music. Yet this has not been the case, even with the couple of breakup songs on the album.
The only possible exception is The Emperor’s New Clothes, which I enjoy about as much, but might be getting more appreciation out of the lyrics nowadays. No clue why, since I can’t pick out anything I particularly relate to in there.
My favorite track was and remains Feel So Different, which opens the album and isn’t topped by any that follow it. It begins with the spoken Serenity prayer (my first exposure to that particular prayer, back when I first played this album as a teenager). From there, it layers thickly portentous lyrics over a background of slowly-building strings, hinting at but never outright explaining some great personal revelation:
The whole time I’ve never seen
all I need was inside me
now I feel so different
It’s a total twelve-car pileup of cliches, I know, but I love it anyway. The vagueness makes it easy to just imagine that it’s about whatever’s making you feel so different, and that makes it easier to just get swept up in the emotionality of it. For some reason other songs that are similarly built just don’t do the same thing for me. Maybe because of how young I was when I encountered this one. Maybe because this is an especially well-crafted example of the technique. Or maybe, since this isn’t a popular song that gets played on the radio, I can relish the illusion that the song is mine alone.
Whatever the reason, I like the song. The rest of the album is okay, but doesn’t quite reach the same level with me.
Next: Falling Farther In
Monday, August 24, 2015
All My CDs, pt 89: Transcendental Youth
Finally, here is the last CD on shelf 2 of my collection. The third and final shelf awaits, and the end of this project is tantalizingly near.
Transcendental Youth - The Mountain Goats
I’m seriously considering putting this on my playlist for my upcoming half-marathon. It’s got a fair number of slow songs, which could be a count against it, but for long distances sometimes it’s wise to give yourself reminders to pace yourself. Besides, it opens with one of the most encouraging lyrics ever:
do every stupid thing that makes you feel alive
do every stupid thing to try to drive the dark away
let people call you crazy for the choices that you make
find limits past the limits, jump in front of trains all day
and stay alive
just stay alive
I can’t think of a better way to begin a long run.
As with all other Mountain Goats music, each song is a goldmine of poetic analysis, promising years of meaning to be gleaned gradually over many many listenings. I could picture myself in ten years still learning new things from this album. That’s another of the traits that mark my favorite music, aside from the emotional complexity that I mentioned in the last review.
One more such trait is a defiance of conventional genre distinctions. Many Mountain Goats sound like acoustic folk music, others like rock or jazz or even metal. None are strictly classifiable as any one thing. I like that.
Next: I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got
Transcendental Youth - The Mountain Goats
I’m seriously considering putting this on my playlist for my upcoming half-marathon. It’s got a fair number of slow songs, which could be a count against it, but for long distances sometimes it’s wise to give yourself reminders to pace yourself. Besides, it opens with one of the most encouraging lyrics ever:
do every stupid thing that makes you feel alive
do every stupid thing to try to drive the dark away
let people call you crazy for the choices that you make
find limits past the limits, jump in front of trains all day
and stay alive
just stay alive
I can’t think of a better way to begin a long run.
As with all other Mountain Goats music, each song is a goldmine of poetic analysis, promising years of meaning to be gleaned gradually over many many listenings. I could picture myself in ten years still learning new things from this album. That’s another of the traits that mark my favorite music, aside from the emotional complexity that I mentioned in the last review.
One more such trait is a defiance of conventional genre distinctions. Many Mountain Goats sound like acoustic folk music, others like rock or jazz or even metal. None are strictly classifiable as any one thing. I like that.
Next: I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got
Thursday, August 20, 2015
All My CDs, pt 88: Tallahassee
Well, guy in a skeleton costume
comes up to the guy in the superman suit
runs through him with a broadsword
Tallahassee - The Mountain Goats
Since I’m in the late stages of preparing for a half-marathon, reviewing this album has been somewhat inhibited by the fact that much if it is far too slow-paced and sedate to run to. It’s far from being the slowest music in my collection and several songs are indeed quite upbeat. But more than half of it is appropriate for a lazy summer afternoon sheltering from the sweltering heat, not running maniacally through it.
The writing on this album is at least as good as in The Sunset Tree, and a few of my very favorite Mountain Goats songs are here. One is No Children, whose meaning I cannot divine but which I cannot stop playing over and over. It seems every time I hear it the absurdly pessimistic lyrics and infectiously upbeat music seem more and more brilliantly blended.
Old College Try is another song very close to my heart. It reminds me poignantly of my ex-fiance; I walked down to the end with him because he came all the way down with me.
One pattern I am noticing about my most beloved albums, musicians and songs is that they all combine sad and happy themes in novel and counterintuitive ways. It reflects, I think, the complexity of our emotional lives, in that no feeling is ever felt in a vacuum, untainted by opposing implications. Hope and fear go hand in hand, as do pain and growth. Music - and indeed any art - that does not acknowledge the dark and light side is sorely lacking as an expression of the human experience.
What will I do when I don’t have you
when I finally get what I deserve
Next: Transcendental Youth
comes up to the guy in the superman suit
runs through him with a broadsword
Tallahassee - The Mountain Goats
Since I’m in the late stages of preparing for a half-marathon, reviewing this album has been somewhat inhibited by the fact that much if it is far too slow-paced and sedate to run to. It’s far from being the slowest music in my collection and several songs are indeed quite upbeat. But more than half of it is appropriate for a lazy summer afternoon sheltering from the sweltering heat, not running maniacally through it.
The writing on this album is at least as good as in The Sunset Tree, and a few of my very favorite Mountain Goats songs are here. One is No Children, whose meaning I cannot divine but which I cannot stop playing over and over. It seems every time I hear it the absurdly pessimistic lyrics and infectiously upbeat music seem more and more brilliantly blended.
Old College Try is another song very close to my heart. It reminds me poignantly of my ex-fiance; I walked down to the end with him because he came all the way down with me.
One pattern I am noticing about my most beloved albums, musicians and songs is that they all combine sad and happy themes in novel and counterintuitive ways. It reflects, I think, the complexity of our emotional lives, in that no feeling is ever felt in a vacuum, untainted by opposing implications. Hope and fear go hand in hand, as do pain and growth. Music - and indeed any art - that does not acknowledge the dark and light side is sorely lacking as an expression of the human experience.
What will I do when I don’t have you
when I finally get what I deserve
Next: Transcendental Youth
Monday, August 17, 2015
All My CDs, pt 87: The Sunset Tree
The Sunset Tree - The Mountain Goats
I got this album after hearing Dilaudid on my Pandora station. There aren’t a lot of examples of such immediate love-at-first-sight with regards to a particular song, and it’s hard for my to explain why this one hit me so hard and fast.
The Sunset Tree is a concept album about domestic abuse (this should be clear, if not from the music itself, then from the dedication which includes explicit words of encouragement to victims of abuse). But something occurred to me this morning as I cracked it open with my analytical eyes open: as clearly and unambiguously as each song’s lyrics address the issues of violence within families, they never do so directly. Each time the narrative begins to show a little bit of its primary subject, the line of sight is shunted aside to some metaphor or literary allusion. We’re never allowed to look the violence right in the eye and acknowledge it for what it is. Yet, each song manages to still say what it means, almost more impactfully because it uses a language of metaphor. It’s almost as if, when a topic is so viscerally fraught and horrifying, the only way to effectively speak of it (without scaring off the audience) is figuratively.
Many of the metaphors use animal imagery. Lions to represent the raw violence of a huge and powerful aggressor. Magpies to represent the theft of life and pleasure and joy. Others are biblical: at the end of This Year, when the stepfather is coming down the driveway, “There will be feasting / and dancing / in Jerusalem next year.”
For this and many other reasons I’m coming to the conclusion that John Darnielle may be one of the best songwriters of our time. Or perhaps he’s just adept at the peculiar melange of positive and negative imagery and sound that tickles my own senses so powerfully. Either way, I’m glad to be wrapping up shelf 2 of 3 with three Mountain Goats albums, and hope one day to increase that number.
Next: Tallahassee
I got this album after hearing Dilaudid on my Pandora station. There aren’t a lot of examples of such immediate love-at-first-sight with regards to a particular song, and it’s hard for my to explain why this one hit me so hard and fast.
The Sunset Tree is a concept album about domestic abuse (this should be clear, if not from the music itself, then from the dedication which includes explicit words of encouragement to victims of abuse). But something occurred to me this morning as I cracked it open with my analytical eyes open: as clearly and unambiguously as each song’s lyrics address the issues of violence within families, they never do so directly. Each time the narrative begins to show a little bit of its primary subject, the line of sight is shunted aside to some metaphor or literary allusion. We’re never allowed to look the violence right in the eye and acknowledge it for what it is. Yet, each song manages to still say what it means, almost more impactfully because it uses a language of metaphor. It’s almost as if, when a topic is so viscerally fraught and horrifying, the only way to effectively speak of it (without scaring off the audience) is figuratively.
Many of the metaphors use animal imagery. Lions to represent the raw violence of a huge and powerful aggressor. Magpies to represent the theft of life and pleasure and joy. Others are biblical: at the end of This Year, when the stepfather is coming down the driveway, “There will be feasting / and dancing / in Jerusalem next year.”
For this and many other reasons I’m coming to the conclusion that John Darnielle may be one of the best songwriters of our time. Or perhaps he’s just adept at the peculiar melange of positive and negative imagery and sound that tickles my own senses so powerfully. Either way, I’m glad to be wrapping up shelf 2 of 3 with three Mountain Goats albums, and hope one day to increase that number.
Next: Tallahassee
Thursday, August 13, 2015
All My CDs, pt 86: Havoc and Bright Lights
Havoc and Bright Lights - Alanis Morissette
I describe this as the album where Alanis Morissette finally achieves enlightenment, inasmuch as all stages of growth resemble finally achieving enlightenment when compared to all previous stages. In that sense, each new discovery is like another layer peeled off the onion of life, each more tender and pungent than the last. In truth, we can really only say for sure that this is the review where I finally am confident I can spell "Morissette" without checking. (One M, one R, all other consonants doubled.)
Having for the first time listened to an analyzed each of these last six albums in sequence, I can say I’ve gleaned some new understanding of how the music has changed and evolved over the past few decades. The style of music here compared with that in Jagged Little Pill and Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie is much more techno, and reflects changes in the overall sound of popular music from the 90s to the 10s. Yet it’s still unmistakably Alanis Morissette, and I get no impression she’s pandering to a popular audience with these changes. The diary-like, conversational tone of many of the early songs has given way to a more typical pop-song structure for even the less structured songs, yet they still come off as very candid.
Looking at songs like Guardian, the lead single, it’s tempting to say that this album is happier than all the others. And considering that Jagged Little Pill’s most popular tracks were Ironic and You Oughta Know, I could almost forgive the conclusion. Yet, looking at the rest of the songs, it’s clear that there’s still a lot of emotional ground being covered. Even ultimately positive songs such as Empathy, Spiral and Receive are only positive because they describe a rescue from suffering. After finally looking critically at Guardian, I can now understand that it represents the same concept, only written in second-person perspective.
And there’s still a lot of angstier material. Woman Down is a feminist diatribe. Celebrity viciously lampoons fame and those who seek it. Havoc describes a relapse of mental health, something I’m very familiar with, with a return to the somber voice-and-piano combo that so beautifully encapsulates themes of sadness and regret.
Lens is a particularly interesting song to me. Besides being very exciting to listen to, its lyrics describe something not usually expressed in popular media or discourse in general: the desire for compassion and mutual respect in intellectual debate.
And so now your grand assessment
is that I’m not in your group
that I’m not your kind
And so we’re locked in a stalemate
with you in your corner, and me dismayed in mine
So now it’s your religion against my religion
my humble opinion ‘gainst yours
this does not feel like love
and it’s your conviction against my conviction
and I’d like to know what we’d see
through the lens of love
Numb is another favorite:
here comes a feeling
I run from the feeling
and reach for the drug
I think it’s cool how the lyrics describe constantly running from and numbing away all sorts of negative feelings, but the music (with searing violin and electric guitar solos) betrays that those chaotic and uncontrolled sensations are always present just under the surface. There is no escape. The only way out is through.
For some time I have considered buying copies of Alanis Morissette’s first two albums, made before she’s generally understood to have found her voice and audience with Jagged Little Pill. I’ve heard those first two are very teeny-pop and not as worth listening to, but they’re nonetheless a part of the body of work of one of my favorite musicians and I am curious. But I think I’ll hold off until after this project is over with. I still have many more CDs to review.
Next: The Sunset Tree
I describe this as the album where Alanis Morissette finally achieves enlightenment, inasmuch as all stages of growth resemble finally achieving enlightenment when compared to all previous stages. In that sense, each new discovery is like another layer peeled off the onion of life, each more tender and pungent than the last. In truth, we can really only say for sure that this is the review where I finally am confident I can spell "Morissette" without checking. (One M, one R, all other consonants doubled.)
Having for the first time listened to an analyzed each of these last six albums in sequence, I can say I’ve gleaned some new understanding of how the music has changed and evolved over the past few decades. The style of music here compared with that in Jagged Little Pill and Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie is much more techno, and reflects changes in the overall sound of popular music from the 90s to the 10s. Yet it’s still unmistakably Alanis Morissette, and I get no impression she’s pandering to a popular audience with these changes. The diary-like, conversational tone of many of the early songs has given way to a more typical pop-song structure for even the less structured songs, yet they still come off as very candid.
Looking at songs like Guardian, the lead single, it’s tempting to say that this album is happier than all the others. And considering that Jagged Little Pill’s most popular tracks were Ironic and You Oughta Know, I could almost forgive the conclusion. Yet, looking at the rest of the songs, it’s clear that there’s still a lot of emotional ground being covered. Even ultimately positive songs such as Empathy, Spiral and Receive are only positive because they describe a rescue from suffering. After finally looking critically at Guardian, I can now understand that it represents the same concept, only written in second-person perspective.
And there’s still a lot of angstier material. Woman Down is a feminist diatribe. Celebrity viciously lampoons fame and those who seek it. Havoc describes a relapse of mental health, something I’m very familiar with, with a return to the somber voice-and-piano combo that so beautifully encapsulates themes of sadness and regret.
Lens is a particularly interesting song to me. Besides being very exciting to listen to, its lyrics describe something not usually expressed in popular media or discourse in general: the desire for compassion and mutual respect in intellectual debate.
And so now your grand assessment
is that I’m not in your group
that I’m not your kind
And so we’re locked in a stalemate
with you in your corner, and me dismayed in mine
So now it’s your religion against my religion
my humble opinion ‘gainst yours
this does not feel like love
and it’s your conviction against my conviction
and I’d like to know what we’d see
through the lens of love
Numb is another favorite:
here comes a feeling
I run from the feeling
and reach for the drug
I think it’s cool how the lyrics describe constantly running from and numbing away all sorts of negative feelings, but the music (with searing violin and electric guitar solos) betrays that those chaotic and uncontrolled sensations are always present just under the surface. There is no escape. The only way out is through.
For some time I have considered buying copies of Alanis Morissette’s first two albums, made before she’s generally understood to have found her voice and audience with Jagged Little Pill. I’ve heard those first two are very teeny-pop and not as worth listening to, but they’re nonetheless a part of the body of work of one of my favorite musicians and I am curious. But I think I’ll hold off until after this project is over with. I still have many more CDs to review.
Next: The Sunset Tree
Monday, August 10, 2015
All My CDs, pt 85: Flavors of Entanglement
Flavors of Entanglement - Alanis Morissette
After So-Called Chaos, I gradually became distracted by other artists that I discovered on the wayward path from adolescence to adulthood, and regrettably forgot about my first favorite musician for several years. It wasn’t until 2013 that I thought to check back, and found out that she’d released two albums while I wasn’t looking, and so I had some catching up to do.
I remember being disappointed. Flavors of Entanglement apparently had been produced during, and was mostly about, the aftermath of a breakup between Morissette and her fiance of several years. This means that the best time for me to have encountered it would have been in 2012, when I was myself recovering from the end of a long-term committed relationship. In retrospect, I might have been much more into songs like Moratorium, Torch, Not as We, and Underneath if I’d still been in the thick of similar experiences. Not As We is a particularly potent expression of the life-desolation and the task of rebuilding one’s identity after such a change.
Then there’s Giggling Again For No Reason, which for the first time seems to celebrate solitude and independence and the sheer joy of leaving, to a trancy techno beat:
Oh this state of ecstasy
Nothing but road could ever give to me
This liberty wind in my face
And I’m giggling again for no reason
All grief eventually gives way to acceptance and, even, to newfound bliss.
But this independence isn’t all that life entails. With lyrics so quintessentially hippy they have to be sincere, Citizen of the Planet describes the ideal state as oneness with all of existence, and a community of all people living in peace.
My number-one favorite, to the point where I can’t help but grin like an idiot when it comes on, is Incomplete. Especially when I’m running and on my fifth mile. Probably because it compares the endless struggle toward enlightenment and self-perfection with a very long run, complete with sweat. So much sweat.
Next: Havoc and Bright Lights
After So-Called Chaos, I gradually became distracted by other artists that I discovered on the wayward path from adolescence to adulthood, and regrettably forgot about my first favorite musician for several years. It wasn’t until 2013 that I thought to check back, and found out that she’d released two albums while I wasn’t looking, and so I had some catching up to do.
I remember being disappointed. Flavors of Entanglement apparently had been produced during, and was mostly about, the aftermath of a breakup between Morissette and her fiance of several years. This means that the best time for me to have encountered it would have been in 2012, when I was myself recovering from the end of a long-term committed relationship. In retrospect, I might have been much more into songs like Moratorium, Torch, Not as We, and Underneath if I’d still been in the thick of similar experiences. Not As We is a particularly potent expression of the life-desolation and the task of rebuilding one’s identity after such a change.
Then there’s Giggling Again For No Reason, which for the first time seems to celebrate solitude and independence and the sheer joy of leaving, to a trancy techno beat:
Oh this state of ecstasy
Nothing but road could ever give to me
This liberty wind in my face
And I’m giggling again for no reason
All grief eventually gives way to acceptance and, even, to newfound bliss.
But this independence isn’t all that life entails. With lyrics so quintessentially hippy they have to be sincere, Citizen of the Planet describes the ideal state as oneness with all of existence, and a community of all people living in peace.
My number-one favorite, to the point where I can’t help but grin like an idiot when it comes on, is Incomplete. Especially when I’m running and on my fifth mile. Probably because it compares the endless struggle toward enlightenment and self-perfection with a very long run, complete with sweat. So much sweat.
Next: Havoc and Bright Lights
Thursday, August 06, 2015
All My CDs, pt 84: So-Called Chaos
So-Called Chaos - Alanis Morissette
This album came out when I was in my mid-teens and all but ready to declare Alanis Morissette a living goddess. Ironically, the songs that have consistently persuaded me in this regard are the most self-aware, self-critical, and vulnerable ones. The album opens with Eight Easy Steps, where Morissette sarcastically declares herself a good role-model in various areas of expertise:
How to hate women when you’re supposed to be a feminist
how to play all pious when you’re really a hypocrite
how to hate God when you’re a prayer and a spiritualist
how to sabotage your fantasies by fear of success
Yet for all of these frailties and faults and foibles, there’s this indomitable will to reach for more. It’s clear that admitting failure is always the first step (and ONLY the first step) in self-improvement. Out is Through describes the painful but worthwhile process of sticking it out with someone when things get dicey, and This Grudge acknowledges the need to finally, for sanity’s sake, let go.
And then there’s the songs that acknowledge that although we have faults, although we have far to go, we can still be loved and loving:
You see everything, you see every part
You see all my light and you love my dark
You dig everything of which I'm ashamed
There's not anything to which you can't relate
And you're still here
If I had to pick just one song to represent why I love Alanis Morissette, it would be Everything.
Next: Flavors of Entanglement
This album came out when I was in my mid-teens and all but ready to declare Alanis Morissette a living goddess. Ironically, the songs that have consistently persuaded me in this regard are the most self-aware, self-critical, and vulnerable ones. The album opens with Eight Easy Steps, where Morissette sarcastically declares herself a good role-model in various areas of expertise:
How to hate women when you’re supposed to be a feminist
how to play all pious when you’re really a hypocrite
how to hate God when you’re a prayer and a spiritualist
how to sabotage your fantasies by fear of success
Yet for all of these frailties and faults and foibles, there’s this indomitable will to reach for more. It’s clear that admitting failure is always the first step (and ONLY the first step) in self-improvement. Out is Through describes the painful but worthwhile process of sticking it out with someone when things get dicey, and This Grudge acknowledges the need to finally, for sanity’s sake, let go.
And then there’s the songs that acknowledge that although we have faults, although we have far to go, we can still be loved and loving:
You see everything, you see every part
You see all my light and you love my dark
You dig everything of which I'm ashamed
There's not anything to which you can't relate
And you're still here
If I had to pick just one song to represent why I love Alanis Morissette, it would be Everything.
Next: Flavors of Entanglement
Monday, August 03, 2015
All My CDs, pt 83: Under Rug Swept
Under Rug Swept - Alanis Morissette
It’s hard to follow the bombshells that are Jagged Little Pill and Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, and in comparison Under Rug Swept seems a bit blander. In particular, the music has more of a poppish vibe than many of the daringly experimental songs found in the previous albums. But the intellectualism and emotional vulnerability are still there, and there are plenty of unique things about this album that make it a worthy addition to my collection.
Fans of the Alanis who’s bitingly sarcastic in her treatment of ex lovers will be pleased with Narcissus, which seems to meet the bitterness quota for the album, as the rest of it is much softer and more self-reflective. Flinch, So Unsexy, and Precious Illusions reveal a very different kind of persona, one who is shrinkingly insecure and overly attached, far from the strikingly independent mask that such a person might don for the sake of self-protection.
The other songs mainly deal with reframing interpersonal relationships in a more compassionate light. That Particular Time and Surrendering present the rather groundbreaking idea that breaking up and being rejected can be gentle, respectful, healthy, and even loving - rather than contentious and hurtful:
At that particular time love encouraged me to leave
At that particular moment I knew that staying with you meant deserting me
that particular month was harder than you’d believe
but I still left at that particular time
Surrendering in particular is the only song I’ve ever heard that imagines rejection of a prospective romantic partner as an expression of praise and respect. Would that all rejections could be taken in this light; perhaps then we’d have less rage, jealousy, and violence in the name of unrequited attraction.
A longtime favorite of mine from this album is A Man, which was my adolescent self’s first exposure to the idea that feminism in its most effective form cannot be a crusade against the male gender. Written from the perspective of a man who resents being held responsible for all the crimes of patriarchy, it’s especially powerful coming from a singer whose career was made at least partly with musical tirades against men. It fits very well with the album’s overall theme of healing interpersonal wounds and reframing conflict as an opportunity for intimacy. It’s also one of the most musically interesting songs on this album.
Next: So-Called Chaos
It’s hard to follow the bombshells that are Jagged Little Pill and Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, and in comparison Under Rug Swept seems a bit blander. In particular, the music has more of a poppish vibe than many of the daringly experimental songs found in the previous albums. But the intellectualism and emotional vulnerability are still there, and there are plenty of unique things about this album that make it a worthy addition to my collection.
Fans of the Alanis who’s bitingly sarcastic in her treatment of ex lovers will be pleased with Narcissus, which seems to meet the bitterness quota for the album, as the rest of it is much softer and more self-reflective. Flinch, So Unsexy, and Precious Illusions reveal a very different kind of persona, one who is shrinkingly insecure and overly attached, far from the strikingly independent mask that such a person might don for the sake of self-protection.
The other songs mainly deal with reframing interpersonal relationships in a more compassionate light. That Particular Time and Surrendering present the rather groundbreaking idea that breaking up and being rejected can be gentle, respectful, healthy, and even loving - rather than contentious and hurtful:
At that particular time love encouraged me to leave
At that particular moment I knew that staying with you meant deserting me
that particular month was harder than you’d believe
but I still left at that particular time
Surrendering in particular is the only song I’ve ever heard that imagines rejection of a prospective romantic partner as an expression of praise and respect. Would that all rejections could be taken in this light; perhaps then we’d have less rage, jealousy, and violence in the name of unrequited attraction.
A longtime favorite of mine from this album is A Man, which was my adolescent self’s first exposure to the idea that feminism in its most effective form cannot be a crusade against the male gender. Written from the perspective of a man who resents being held responsible for all the crimes of patriarchy, it’s especially powerful coming from a singer whose career was made at least partly with musical tirades against men. It fits very well with the album’s overall theme of healing interpersonal wounds and reframing conflict as an opportunity for intimacy. It’s also one of the most musically interesting songs on this album.
Next: So-Called Chaos
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