Dec
5
The Meaning of Unrequited Love? On “Transatlanticism,” by Death Cab for Cutie
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for Constance Turner
Transatlanticism
Death Cab for Cutie (song available here; lyrics from here)
The Atlantic was born today and I’ll tell you how
The clouds above opened up and let it out
I was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere
When the water filled every hole
And thousands upon thousands made an ocean
Making islands where no island should go
Oh, no
Most people were overjoyed; they took to their boats
I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat
The rhythm of my footsteps crossing flatlands to your door
Have been silenced forevermore
The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row
It seems farther than ever before
Oh, no
I need you so much closer (X 8)
I need you so much closer (X 4)
So come on, come on (X 4)
Comment:
Even though this Flood sounds Biblical, it is not of Biblical proportions - the Atlantic is nowhere near the size of the Pacific. And I don’t remember people getting happy because it rained so.
The “perforated sphere” makes one think of a wiffle ball. Perforations are punctures - something is being filled, or bursting, or bleeding. Every broken heart unleashes an ocean: those “clouds” weren’t really above, just a bit higher than one would expect. Along with the ocean comes an unnatural emphasis on isolation (”making islands where no island should go”) and distance (”it seems farther than ever before”).
Something very strange is going on in this song, though. Our speaker is not being entirely honest with himself. “Most people were overjoyed” - huh? People like their own personal lake cutting them off from others? It’s more than likely we’re hearing this because everyone else must be happy, there must be a few couples getting smoochy and going out on the boats and seeming to have fun. Never mind that they’ve got their share of problems too, and never mind every other single guy getting in the boat and dutifully rowing away instead of singing this. Moreover, remember what created the “Atlantic” here: this guy going “waaaaaaaaa my heart is so broken it has flooded everything.” He’s implicitly telling us that he’s not seeing correctly, his longing is making the world seem other than what it is.
The delusions continue with “flatlands” - wait, what? Perforated spheres have holes in them. There’s some flatland, sure. There’s also these giant pits in the ground that throw you to your doom, if not make journeying so hard that you could only go out once. Maybe you did walk a pretty far distance, but notice the main difference between walking and rowing: he can’t hear the rhythm of his own footsteps, the journey “seems” longer.
The most fatal fact is that this door has never been opened for him - otherwise, this song wouldn’t have been written.
So what’s going on exactly? Why does this guy seem so pathetic?
It’s always really pathetic when you’re in love and not loved back at all. You might as well be an island unto yourself: you can only see what you want to see in the world, because not much else matters, and the funny thing is you’re not trying to be an egotist. It just has to be that way because everyone else is busy and can’t be bothered, and even if they were bothered they don’t need to hear you rant for hours. Moreover, no one can really get you the one person you want. It’s up to her to see differently.
This song ends with hope, stemming from the mere fact that the unrequited lover has to step beyond himself. This flood was less than Biblical - maybe his wish is impossible, but then again, lovers do cross oceans for each other. It happens every day. And even if this case won’t resolve that way, it will resolve, and he’s going to cross the Atlantic in a more important way.
We see this happening in the chant - the chant moves from “I need you so much closer,” an actual recognition that his love isn’t good enough alone. Before, it was him just walking or maybe trying to row. After this has been said 12 times, there’s another shift: “So come on, come on:” she has to do something, the situation he’s in is unfair.
We know, either way, that silence after this is appropriate. Either he’ll be loved or he’ll have walked away. His own personal ocean will have been crossed, and yeah, he’s better for it either way, and not because his initial loving was wrong. After all, the counterfactual here is: “What if someone loved enough that the world could Flood?”
Nov
19
1. It’s been two weeks, but I felt I could wait for the sake of saying an appropriate thank you to the Poor Richard’s String Quartet - Michael Finckel, Thomas Kraines, Andrea Schultz, Beverly Shin and David Yang - who played in Christ Church that night. I’m no good at writing music criticism, so I bought a recording of the piece performed, Schubert’s Quintet in C Major, D 956 Op. Posthumous 163, and have been listening to it nearly every day in order to figure out something to say.
Any comment on the performance would be incomplete without mentioning the stop Paul and I made at Artist’s House before it. The art was of incredible technical skill, but much of it was from people around my age, and it was lacking in a key respect: it was as if the artists, for the most part, had nothing to say. Perhaps Katherine Fraser’s work was emblematic of it generally: she clearly is a superior painter. But if you look at her piece “The Modern Woman,” it’s impossible not to come up with the critique Paul managed in a matter of seconds - (paraphrasing) “her hair is shorn, the dress hides her sexuality, she’s holding a skull that reminds us of O’Keefe. Oh look, despite her attempts to be sexless, there’s a calendar, reminding us of the cycle that she must endure biologically no matter how many externals she changes.”
“Cliched” is too kind a word. The engagement of the fine arts with mass media - making poster-like/Myspace background type paintings - seemed to be my generation’s way of showing off their talents, nothing more.
2. The Quintet was a mature piece played by professionals slightly older than many of the artists at the gallery. The most powerful thing about the performance was its maturity - not a single note was wasted, and it was clear that everyone playing was determined to make their instrument sing the line so as to create the whole: “Keeps all his goings graces.”
This Quintet is the stuff of legend, I found out while looking up music criticism on it. It is an hour’s worth of music, and is one of the last pieces Schubert wrote. It moves back and forth a variety of ways - from loud to soft and back and forth describes all the movements. But to be more specific: the opening Allegro starts with a tender, vigorous theme. The Adagio that follows gets quiet and contemplative for a while before switching to a minor key. The Scherzo is by contrast a grand recovery, but not quite a triumphal march: it’s too elegant, and matches the subtlety of the Trio within. The Allegretto the piece ends with is almost a dance, except by this point the listener has been saturated such that every note holds extra weight. It is a dance, but one of competing progressions within the music: the tension isn’t dark, but one does sit in suspense at how the music will resolve. Quite powerfully and perhaps blissfully, it turns out.
In outline, then, what you have is some kind of mini-epic. There are piano pieces like this - while it dwells on one theme almost exclusively, Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantasie is a place to look. The primary feeling one gets is that a range of related phrases are being explored thoroughly: no stone is left unturned in the search for the best music possible.
It sounds weird to say that maturity is an intellectual endeavor, whether implicit or explicit, and I think that’s why I’m sticking to the “they don’t have anything to say” story regarding the criticism before. It’s not clear to me that if you have anything to say that you’re an intellectual. What is clear is that if you do have something to say, you’ve provided room for those of us who care to think, and perhaps we can converse about what matters.
Nov
3
Night Windows
The Weakerthans (song lyrics from here and here; song available here)
In the stick-count for the song
of knowing you’re gone
Glancing up at where you lived
when you lived here
I see you suddenly alive
and nearly smiling
Stop and hold my breath
and watch the way you used to be
The full moon makes
our faces shine
like over-ironed polyester
Then disappears behind the clouds
and leaves me under empty rows
of night windows
We could walk to where these streets
get pulled together
blinking, lined with gravel
shoulder squared towards an end
Where the radio resounds
from doppling traffic
Where the power lines
steal S’s from the hourly news
De-pluralize our casualties
drown the Generals out in static
We turn and watch our city sprawl
and send us signals in the glow
of night windows
night windows
(but you’re not coming home again
and i won’t ever get to say)
Remember how…
I’m sorry that…
I miss the way…
Could we…
night windows x 3
Commentary:
I think - not entirely sure of this - a stick-count is an isolated sound (i.e. a drumbeat) you use to keep time. This song is isolated speech until the end, when a chorus of voices repeats “but you’re not coming home again / and I won’t ever get to say” while the main speaker chants over it.
The easy imagery hits hard: the beloved isn’t there anymore, he only focuses on her (”watch the way we used to be”) when he holds his breath. The state of remembrance might as well be death; what is being remembered, that joy, is like “over-ironed polyester.” Too much heat creates a sheen that is sure to go, one that was unnatural to begin with.
Once the light of the moon is gone, things get more complex - we need to locate the speaker. “Empty rows of night windows” almost sounds like a blank musical staff: this song is beginning again in a sense. The only difference is that all is darkness now.
So he has to walk, and he walks in possibility. The nature of this possibility is curious: she’s dead, but because they did walk together, or may have walked together, the impossible wish is based on the actual. Possibility leads to impossibility back to possibility: perhaps death isn’t a going away, but a cycling in and out of existence.
The streets blink both in broken streetlights and yellow broken lines. They exist relative to each other - their shoulders stand end-to-end, their joining defines them.
Giving mind and body to the streets leads to the question of what sort of organism he’s confronting. The traffic in those streets again exists relative; “doppler shifts” consider two objects, an observer and a wave source. In this case, the “observer” is making a song, something that would play on the radio. What plays on the radio now - the hourly news - is robbed by devices of this earth. There is something more powerfully electric, by implication.
The speech and nerves of this organism are lacking. It is teeming to the point of incoherence: not casualties, but just one casualty matters now. The radio is more valuable for the “static” which drowns out the mass of voices, the present-day commands. The city will still try to communicate, of course, but its babble falls silent, literally, upon the night windows.
He’s been walking with his vision since the light of the moon disappeared. They’ve moved up as they walked.
The space for her is always there; the whole of life only moves around it. In everyone saying “she’s gone,” they still say “she.” Our speaker is within the organism, trapped. Love is more powerful than loss in another world; in our world, love is more powerful because of loss. We have moved from the possible to the impossible to the possible ourselves. We’ll know that world soon enough.
Nov
3
Recommended: “The Spirit of Orthodoxy” Choir
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Paul and I went and saw them Sunday night, and they were excellent. Their understanding of dynamics was very impressive, and it didn’t hurt that quite a few of them had good voices. They seemed to excel at pieces which demanded vigor and really got into the music, but they were never “bad,” even if their phrasing and pitch were a bit off at times.
Highly recommended. Their sound is rich and warm: they know how to make a joyful noise unto the Lord.
Oct
28
Noted Frustration
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Those Bach Inventions and Sinfonias present a new challenge for me, the occasional pianist. I don’t care about the mistakes, but I do care that each voice is rich and vibrant and makes melodic sense. Moreover, I want a mature sound, a sound coming from a 28 year old at least.
Trouble is that it is easy to get a tinny “I’m just going through the motions aren’t I cool” sound and rest satisfied. Moreover, a trap lies in going beyond that: one can get a very good technical sound any pre-teen prodigy can get.
I never was a prodigy, and that’s fine with me. I want my music to grow with me.
Every note counts in Bach and Chopin - nothing is wasted. I’m not getting the sense in my own playing that I’m conveying that.
More technically challenging pieces convey a richness for all musicians who work on them. Part of me feels now that’s cheating for real musicians. It’s kinda like being a poet and doing only flashy or awesome things, and not realizing how well done Wordsworth’s “My Heart Leaps Up” is. The challenge for the poet is to do more than amaze one’s audience; the television can do that at will nowadays.