The Long Lost Mixtape - Episode 6: The Pain is in the Details

When was the last time you had a delicious thought? A thought you couldn't stop thinking about? Something that you could just sit and think about all day? A thought so interesting and provoking that you'd be willing turn off your phone, disconnect from the world, and just sit and think.

I couldn't think of one.

A silly mental exercise but it got me thinking - am I bored with my own thoughts? Maybe.

Or maybe I just haven't noticed the world around me. The details make up the fiber of life. They are the fleshy tissue that holds this bag of bones together. The details turn a living into a life, and make a life worth living. That last sentence was a poor excuse for poetry, but today's song is not.

The song is "Sometime Around Midnight" by the Airborne Toxic Event. It is the second single from this American Indie darling's debut self titled LP. Give the song a listen before you read any further.

I've been trying to find other words to describe it but I'm stuck with what hopefully is not yet cliche; this song is as haunting as it is beautiful. According to sources (wikipedia),"The song is about a night when lead singer Mikel Jollet met a former girlfriend while out at a bar, during which he discovered that he still loved her. The entire band was present during this event. The lyrics to the song were written in isolation by Jollet over the course of the next three days."

So the song is a thinly vailed hypothetical. As if Mikel is still so heartbroken that he can't bring himself to admit that he himself is the subject. So hides behind the pronoun "you",  asking the listener to stand in his place and take his torture. 

Beginning with a wave of strings, the curtains part and the lights dim, leaving us with a simple Guitar and pairing playing simple complimenting melodies. All the while the drums tick away in the background constantly reminding us of the constant background of this song: the loss of time.

The song has a unique structure.

It doesn't follow a normal structure that so many popular songs follow. I.E.:

Verse

Chorus

Verse

Chorus

Interlude

Chorus 

Instead, it follows a loose pattern of couplets and tercets which follow a basic melody which repeats through the 5:04 runtime. These stanzas are focused less on placement in single looping melody and more about purpose in the story. Each loop begins with a couplet focused on story with the remainder of the loop dedicated to detail. If you remove that detail, the skeleton of the song looks like this:

And it starts

Sometime around midnight

As you stand
Under the bar lights

But you know
That she's watching

And so there's a change
In your emotions

Then she leaves

With someone you don't know

Then you walk

Under the streetlight

You just have to see her

You know that she'll break you in two

Short right? It's a simple story about heartbreak and a lost love. So why is the song powerful and unique? The couplets above are well written, sure. The music is great, true. But the Pain is in the Details. And the Pain is where the song hits home.

So, let's forget the basic story (the blue stanzas) and focus on the details (in orange), and see what juicy ideas we can glean from it.

And it starts

Sometime around midnight

Or at least that's when 

You lose yourself

For a minute or two

Ordinarily, midnight is a precise and unexceptional event that signals a new calendar date. The world at large is asleep and unappreciative of the shift. And with subtle placement, a normally quiet and exact setting is shrouded in a haze of uncertainty. The new sun has not yet risen to signify a new day. "Your story" as Mikel would say, begins in the liminal space before or after a major shift. And we can't be quite sure on which side we stand.

As you stand

Under the bar lights

And the band plays some song

About forgetting yourself for a while

A meta comment. The band lets us know they are still here, walking us through the points in the story and painting in the details for our understanding.

And the piano's this melancholy soundcheck

To her smile

Soundcheck is play-through or rehearsal in preparation for a performance. A signal that something is about to happen.

And that white dress she's wearing

You haven't seen her

For a while

It seems like a raw flow of consciousness. He sees her smile. He notices her dress. He remembers how long it has been.

But when I heard it for the first time it played out a little differently. Instead, I heard "You haven't seen IT for a while." Instead, the object is the dress, not the woman. The white dress is a fairly obvious stand-in for a wedding dress. Perhaps from daydreams. Perhaps from actual plans for a wedding. This is the triggering thought that sets the story in motion.

But you know

That she's watching

She's laughing, She's turning

She's holding her tonic like a cross

Her actions are carefully choreographed. She has come prepared, armored in the white dress she knows he will remember. She laughs, she turns, all the while watching him, waiting to see how he will react. And to offset her offensive battle strategy, she holds her tonic like a cross to shield her from evil and or to camouflage her as 'distracted'.

Also, just a tonic. No mention of any alcohol is mentioned. Meaning, unlike her buzzed opponent, she is going into this war-dance completely focused and sober. One of many hints that this is much more than a random run-in with your ex a a bar.

The room's suddenly spinning

She walks up and asks how you are

While she is fully prepared for the encounter, he is not. He is buzzed, defensless and therefore out of step. So, even before she says a word, he is caught of guard.

So you can smell her perfume

You can see her lying naked in your arms

No more mention is given the conversation. He isn't concerned with listening or hearing (the sense most associated with communication) anymore. He is overcome by his sense of smell (an intimate sense often associated with memory) and sight (associated with interacting and orienting yourself with the world around you). In other words, Mikel is so taken a back, that he is leaning on his other senses to understand what is happening. All that said without actually saying anything.

This is the turning point.

And so there's a change

In your emotions

And all these memories come rushing

Like feral waves to your mind

One definition of 'Feral' from the Merriam Webster dictionary is; "Having escaped from domestication and become wild". In a way he has been set free from his relationship. But returning mentally to the relationship, he becomes even more wild.

Of the curl of your bodies

Like two perfect circles intwined

To perfect circles. Two rings. Wedding rings. Once again, that memory returns. He is free of the relationship, but not of the memories. And as a wild animal, his thoughts and feelings have devolved to become primitive and lustful.

And you feel hopeless and homeless

And lost in the haze of the wine

Hopeless and homeless and Lost. The grouping of these two words is genius. The problem with heartache is that your source of healing is now the source of pain. I think that is why so many who get dumped mention confusion as one of the stronger emotions they feel. The solution has become the problem. The broken hearted are left without a way to fix that which is broken.

Then she leaves

With someone you don't know

But she makes sure you saw her

She looks right at you and bolts

Her final move. Like a poisonous serpent, she surprised him, she stunned him and now she serves the killing blow; a single, striking glance before departing with someone, leaving him alone again. Her play was so perfect that he hasn't even made a single move.

As she walks out

Your blood boiling

Your stomach in ropes

Symptoms of a poisonous snake bite include: difficulty breathing, nausea, numbness, vomiting, blurred vision, and confusion. All these symptoms he'd probably be feeling after a hard night of drinking anyway. But this list also reads off like chapters in a book entitled 'The 6 Stages of a Broken Heart'. He has been poisoned both physically and emotionally.

Oh and your friends say what is it?

You look like you've seen a Ghost

In a way, he has. The Ghost of everything that was good in his life. We make so many plans in our lives and have so many daydreams. But once forgotten, we rarely have to face them again.

Then you walk

Under the streetlight

And you're too drunk to notice

That everyone's staring at you

Poisoned, he has escaped outside like a wounded animal. The adrenaline begins to flow.

You just don't care what you like 

The world is falling

Around you

You just have to see her

You just have to see her

You just have to see her

You just have to see her

One symptom I failed to mention earlier is salivation. Well, I'm no doctor, but I'm sure there is a reasonable explanation physiologically why you salivate after being poisoned. But poetically it makes perfect sense. Despite all the other painful symptoms, the final symptom is a thirst for more. An addiction. Love turned sour became venom. Venom when left to fester became a drug.

Now, he is out chasing ghosts out on the avenue. Driven by a need to go back, the need to revisit the happy memories. But like any drug it will leave you worse than before, just as the last line of the song leaves us.

You just have to see her

You know that she'll break you in two

End. No explanation. No Resolution. No friendly cartoon pig with a playful stutter saying "That's all folks!" Just a final guitar note ringing in our ears. The song ends just like the relationship must have; without closure. And we are left alone, feeling a little of what Mikel must have felt.

While the song is depressing, it is filled with great literary flavor. I hope that by reading through, you not only have some interesting things to think about but are a little more comfortable exploring delicious thoughts for yourself. Take time to enjoy thinking thoughts.

Thanks for reading, Good luck out there.

(For more songs by this band, I recommend their song "Girls in their summer dresses", found HERE)

Long Lost Mixtape - Mini: Symphonic Inspiration

Normally, I would start with some pseudo-philosophical question or thought which would catch your attention and serve as the framework around which I would describe a song. Not today. It is Friday. A perfectly natural reason to feel good. Odds are you feeling better today than you did yesterday. I know for me, waking up this morning was a little easier.

But for the days when waking up is just the first mistake in a series of painful actions, each progressively getting worse. Well I thought I'd help you with that.

The song is 'Light and Day' by the choral rock group The Polyphonic Spree. You may recognize the song. It was featured in an episode of scrubs and in the critically praised film 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'. [A side note about the band. When I say 'choral rock' it is more like 'symphonic rock'. The band has literally dozens of members. A harp player, a brass section, a small choir and yes, I'm sure they have someone playing the triangle too. But all the chaos of such a large group meshes seamlessly into the best example I can think of organized chaos].

This song is the sunlight of a beautiful brand new day captured in a jar and compressed into 3:03 minutes of music and it is impossible to not feel the warmth and optimism that radiates from it.

Normal 'pump-up tunes', like those we use at the gym to motivate ourselves, do so externally by creating an emotion or feeling which we adjust to feel. Light and Day is different. This song inspires from the inside. It reminds us of what it feels like to be our best self and propels us to feel and be that way again.

I keep this song in my back-pocket for mornings where the the day loom over me like a statistics tests followup up by an appointment for a root-canal. Just keep those words in your head:

"Follow the day and reach for the sun"

Thanks for reading. Good luck out there

Wednesday's Worrier: 10 Steps to Falling Apart

Welcome back to another edition and addition to the

WEDNESDAY WORRIER

My last post covered the song 'This is Gospel' by Panic at the Disco. A great song, but one line has been stuck in my head. This line, the final phrase of the Chorus - "The fear of falling apart" got me thinking. What is it like to "fall apart"? When have I "fallen apart". I mean they can only cancel Community so many times (never thought I would long to be back in a study group...)

After much thought and careful analysis of documents, photos and various social media posts from various stages of my life, I've been able to boil down the process of 'falling apart' into a very simple 10-step process by which the modern human being "falls apart". But why are we always talking about me? Let's talk about you. I know all about you. Your day was disappointing, wasn't it? Why? Let's find out

Your day begins after the fourth strike of the snooze button. Sure you've gotten up with enough time to get ready for work, school, whatever. And just enough extra time, maybe 20 extra minutes, to wander around your apartment thinking of some way to be productive.

Well first thing is first, you aren't going to get the workout in. That's ok. You'll stretch a little and that should take care of th- oh there you go, lying on the floor intending to do a couple sit-ups. But hey that's fine, check Instagram instead. That's a great way to Carpe the Diem.

You get to work late somehow. And of course the meeting started without you. As always, it was a super important meeting, just like every other meeting at 9:00am on a Wednesday. What happened to the passion for your work? What happened to the drive you had? What happened to the chicken tetrazzini you had in the fridge for lunch today? Oh wait, you ate it this morning as a snack.

Now, not only are you a one morning workout and a chicken tetrazzini behind on your fitness routine, but you are now going out to for lunch. Who else is going? Oh, it's that one weird guy from marketing who you can't seem to remember his name despite the fact that you email him at least twice a week for the budget reports. And of course Stacey from HR, who has a strong desire to start raising ferrets but just can't seem to bring herself to that level of commitment. You three are bound to have a thrilling conversation over a Fuji Apple Salad at Panera Bread. Your mind is split between the frustration that now your are over-budget on "eating out spending" this week and trying to correctly time sincere laughter at Stacey's story about, you guessed it, ferrets.

Back at your desk, more work. Great. The day is pretty much over. It wasn't horrible but that is precisely the point. It was purposeless. I was so boring you could have slept through the entirety of Wednesday, woken up Thursday morning and your life would have rolled on just the same as it always has. It was so uneventful that if you were accused of murder, you would not be able to account for your whereabouts at all. In-fact you are so bored with life, your subconscious mind would start making wild stories to try and convince you that actually committed murder just to get some form of entertainment out of the situation.

You put on your coat, grab your bag and head for the elevator. Your mind wanders as you reach the lobby of your office. The walls are beige, just like your life choices. Your begin to think about your childhood home. Saturday morning cartoons. Mr. Rogers. He was great, wasn't he? He always made you feel so great about yourself. He told you that you were a wonderful person, and always believed you could do great things. But wait, are you? No, not really. Then it hits you.

You aren't living up to the potential Mr. Rogers knew you had. The process of Falling Apart begins.

Step 1: The Poorly Timed Realization

The world has stopped turning. And despite the cars honking and whizzing around you, you can't move. You are Dumbstruck and dizzy When did my life get this way? How could you have let it go this far? What am I doing in the middle of the road? You finally reach the safety of the other side only to lean on a light-post for another 15 minutes. Just standing there, not knowing what to do or to say. People passing by notice. You look like you've seen a ghost. But it's worse, it's like the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future were on a tight schedule so all three came at once. Your balance slowly returns and you start on your way home. And amidst all this confusion, the corners of your mouth start to rise


Step 2: Uncontrollable Giggling

Wow, it's almost like a movie. And a second later, rain starts pouring down. No, it is a movie! Today could not get any worse. It is so bad that it is comically bad. Only a team of screen-writers could come up with this cacophony of bad timing. You start laughing to yourself in the rain. And you can't stop. It's hilarious. Your life is in shambles held together by a vacation you have planned 7 months from now and a surprisingly good credit score. All the way home parents change lanes so their kids don't see you laughing like a maniac to yourself in your car.


Step 3: Exhaustion

The laughter washes away as your reach your front door and all that weight you've been carrying in your soul has finally brought you to your knees. You are physically and emotionally drained. You don't even take off your shoes as you shed your coat and other items marking a path to the couch. You curl up in a ball in front of it. You are so tired you don't even have the strength to climb up onto the couch. And just before your eyes shut, you notice that your front door is wide open.


Step 4: Confusion

You awake in a pool of sweat and panic. What time is it? Where am I? Am I sure Ringo is my favorite Beatle? It's dark out and you think you slept all the way into early Thursday morning.  Have I wasted my entire evening? You had plans to clean the kitchen (if you felt like it). How are you ever supposed to get enough sleep to be fully rested for tomorrow?

Note: Most people suffering in Step 4 describe it as "You feel like the placeholder just slipped out of the Book of Your Life and fell into the narrow space between the fridge and counter". 

Your life is in chaos and now you don't even know where to begin. And at that moment you accidentally knock over a box of instant rice. It goes everywhere. That's ok, you tell yourself, I'll just sweep it up. But you realize that you threw out the old broom. You were going to pick up a new on your way home. You wrote it down on your to do list. How could you have forgotten? You have failed yourself once again. Tears start to form in your left eye. Then in your right. And so begins the next step.


Step 5: Ugly Crying. Lots of Ugly Crying

Yup.


Step 6: Thirst

You've laughed and cried (and sweated) more in the last 2 hours than you have in the past 2 months. Your mind is drained but so is your body. You need fluids. Wandering around your place, you start seeing mirages of cold and crisp ginger ale in tall frosty glasses. You waste valuable time and energy chasing after them until you reach the fridge. Nothing. Nothing but an empty Brita pitcher which now you have to fill and wait to filter. Why is the universe so cruel!? For a half second you consider putting it back in the fridge to let it cool, like a normal person. For a quarter of a second you consider grabbing a cup to drink out of, like a proper human being. But you are none of these things anymore. You have become a savage. You bring that spout up to your lips and drink straight from the pitcher.

Note: You won't remember this until you have dinner guests sitting at your table Saturday evening when you are pouring them a drink only to realize you have not washed it. What they don't know... well they don't know.

Note: Steps 5 and 6 can mesh together or form a cycle of one following the other for 3 - 5 stretches. Don't be alarmed this is completely normal.


Step 7: Burning Resolve

Freshly hydrated, adrenaline begins to burn through your veins down to your heart. You can fix this. You can turn your life around. Not can, WILL! You will turn your life around. Just like those motivational speech CD's your aunt gave you for Christmas, you are oblivious to the subtle hints life has for you, and there ain't no stopping you now! You are going to get in shape, Great Shape! You are going to learn Italian, Sei praticamente fluente! All you need now is a plan.


Step 8: Scheming 

You dig up the old paper planner that came with the motivational CD's. It is from 2012, but dates and days of the week don't change so this will work perfectly. You begin planning every aspect of your life. Plans have goals. Goals have plans. Back-up plans have back-up plans have back-up plans. And if you stay in step (which, how could you not with a resolve-of-steel like yours) you can plan your day down to the minute. It's perfect! It's genius! It's bringing me an odd sense of deja vu, but never mind that. But wait...hold on a second.


Step 9: The Fatal Flaw

You've over planned your life again. Haven't you? No schedule is that good. And in a quite literal puff of smoke, it will all go up sounding like this;

"That can't be right? A flaw? In the plan? One fatal flaw? No, no it can't be. Spin class was Tuesday evening, but that's at the same time as the improv club I wanted to join. That's ok, I can move it to Thursday, but wait, I promised Stacey I'd start volunteering at the animal shelter that day. Oh no, it's all falling apart! My life is over! Wasted! All gone! The cosmic horror is upon us all our heads!"

You will end up tearing your planner in half and sprinkling the shredded bits around the room. This , normally, would be a pretty impressive feat of strength considering it is half the size of a phone-book but you won't notice because "It's all over!" Your plans won't hold water and any attempt to change your life is futile and fatal. It's all over.


Step 10: Last Meal

Well, you had a good run. Sure, you made some mistakes, but it wasn't all that bad. And in retrospect, you can even laugh at some of it. And now here you sit, wearing an old Halloween costume, sitting in bed eating some obscure flavor of Halo Top, you don't even remember what it is, using Doritos as a spoon. You are watching Castaway on your laptop and this time you get it, your really get it. Wilson!

And now you fall asleep to never wake again. Just float into a blissful oblivion of cool-ranch induced dreams.  "Goodbye cruel world, I'll remember you, not as you were, but as I wished you were, like an episode of Community, where I was Jeff Winger leading a lovable band of misfits through the hijinks of community college life. Goodby-"

Thursday

You are awake. And what? It's 6:00am. You feel great. You get up, exercise, make it out the door on time for a stupendous day at work. You love your job and can't imagine giving it up for the world. Wow, Thursday was such a great day! All the while Wednesday remains a vague memory in the back of your mind. So why do you have the urge to watch college volleyball?


Thanks for reading, good luck out there