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.
Dec
8
The New World: On "Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure" by The Weakerthans
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Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure
The Weakerthans (lyrics confirmed here, alternate discussion, lyrics and the song itself at songmeanings, The Weakerthans’ Myspace)
It had something to do with the rain
leaching loamy dirt
And the way the back lane came alive
half moon whispered “go”
For a while I heard you missing steps in the street
And your anger pleading in an uncertain key
Singing the sound that you found for me
When the winter took the tips of my ears
found this noisy home
Full of pigeons and places to hide
and when the voices die
I emerged to watch abandoned machines
waiting for their men
To return I remember the way
I would wait for you
To arrive with kibble and a box full of beer
How I’d scratch the empties desperate to hear
You make the sound that you found for me
After scrapping with the ferals and the tabby
let you brush my matted fur
how I’d knead into your chest while you were sleeping
shallow breathing made me purr
But I can’t remember the sound that you found for me
I can’t remember the sound that you found for me
I can’t remember the sound
Comment:
Virtue in the modern world is strength, and strength comes from willful ignorance - we choose to stop knowing so we can act.
Is the choice for strength made consciously? We see a landscape made clean immediately by rainfall: rivers push dirt aside and move more than we do, and we are jealous. The mystery of the lack of light impels us to seek something better. We are seekers in the quest for strength, seekers that do not know we are attempting to know.
The trouble is that we want to be independent and loved, and at some point one or the other has to give way. In the New World, knowledge is subordinate to strength which is freedom. The strongest of us is the most mobile - not the one who rules, or worse yet, simply loves. Both of the latter stand in a sense: one stands still and expects obedience, the other stands in an orbit. Both are pathetic.
After all, what they don’t understand is that music isn’t one sound that corresponds to an individual. Music can only be produced by a diversity of sounds; only then can one march to the beat of a drummer wholly unique. And one of those sounds can’t be a pleading, a demanding for more sound - that’s just empty. Better is the cold, the cacophony, and the watching of silence. The ruler and the simple lover only care for others as they do machines: there is no true music at the point of departure.
Or was there something better back then? One of the best things about this song where a cat stands in the place of ex-lovers is that it’s actually easy to see how ex-lovers were flawed in leaving us. We don’t need to cheap-shot them and talk about them returning to their animal nature, because we can clearly see that trading memories for a greater knowledge isn’t merely a cold act, it’s a stupid act. You can’t sing a song if you don’t remember the notes.
Ex-lovers can counter that they do remember the experiences of old loves, and that made them better, but it is curious that the experience of a flighty animal is more instructive than human protestations. The realm of independence isn’t a realm of knowledge, not at all - if you think you’re better because of your ex’s, it’s because your ex’s really were all that, and you suck. They were able to give you something lasting - if you remember it, it’s not praiseworthy: it is the literal “least you can do.” To not remember it is to be a dumbass cat fighting with the cold and pigeons and machines that do awaken and will run one over. One is still bound by a primitive conception of the world, and if one appreciates, it is a coincidence only.
One thing I like to say is that thought is maybe the highest form of love. Perhaps that needs to be amended: if thought is the highest form of love, then a lack of love characterizes ignorance, or a lack of knowledge is a lack of love. The mystery that asks us to not pester lovers with too many questions is a mystery that keeps us together, not drives us to lands unknown to prove ourselves.
Sep
29
On "Sun in an Empty Room," by The Weakerthans
Filed Under music, weakerthans | 5 Comments
Sun in an Empty Room
The Weakerthans (lyrics mainly from here; song available here)
Now that the furniture’s returning to its goodwill home
With dishes and last week’s papers,
rumors and elections,
crosswords, our unending war
the black in our fingers smear their prints on every door pulled shut
Now that the last month’s rent is scheming with the damage deposit
Take this moment to decide (sun in an empty room)
If we meant it if we tried (sun in an empty room)
Or felt around for far too much (sun in an empty room)
From things that accidentally touch (sun in an empty room)
The hands that we nearly hold with pennies for the GST
The shoulders we lean our shoulders into on the subway, mutter an apology
The shins that we kick beneath the table, that reflexive cry
The faces we meet one awkward beat too long and terrified
Know the things we need to say (sun in an empty room)
And said already anyway (sun in an empty room)
By parallelograms of light (sun in an empty room)
On walls that we repainted white (sun in an empty room)
Sun in an empty room (x 8)
Take eight minutes and divide (sun in an empty room)
By ninety million lonely miles (sun in an empty room)
Watch the shadow cross the floor (sun in an empty room)
We don’t live here anymore (sun in an empty room)
Comment:
It’s a weird feeling after a relationship to be strangers to each other. In fact, the estrangement happening while the relationship is ending - that’s probably the weirdest thing. We have routines for dealing with the people we’re fishing for pennies to pay the tax (GST) to; routines for bumping into others on the subway; routines even for people at cafes or restaurants.
You’d think breaking up doesn’t go through a routine, that it would be unique. But there are just things “we need to say, and said already anyway.”
Maybe something lies in that silent falling of the sun. There isn’t just routine in these lyrics - there’s movement away. Maybe something good is happening here?
The death of routine opens the song. All the problems we had with a lover could have just been put on a newspaper and used to wrap those dishes going back to goodwill. Memories of those problems are fast becoming smudges, and expenses from the time together are just beginning to come together.
It could be that a clean slate is a very good thing at a particular moment - those expenses can be dealt with later, after all. Plenty of couples break up because each partner wants something more, and costs from the past are no object. The walls are repainted white, and the sun is allowed to brighten the room and bring its own natural framework of light and shadow with it. This is a couple mutually breaking up. They feel their time together was an accident, and they tried to make too much of it.
“Movement away” vs. “touching” alone doesn’t tell us whether something good or bad is happening, though. Something underlies both of these themes that tells us what’s happening is an awful thing.
It’s sight which is the issue, and the light which allows for sight. When this couple looks at each other, they look at each other like awkward strangers. It’s the beginnings of love and only the beginnings of love - not caution because something exciting might happen, but perpetual “I can’t let this define me.” The sight is why the movement away - the line “The faces we meet one awkward beat too long and terrified” is more final than the speech or the touching.
But then how does one say the things needed for the breakup? What allows for the final routine to take place? It’s that image of the sun taking its own back that’s the key. This empty slate that both want - the only thing both can look at, because they can’t really look at each other - means they’re both homeless, just like light is while moving. They’re back to being wanderers again. The sun travels, but for all those miles, it has some place to occupy. Our couple doesn’t - goodwill is where the stuff is, not where they are.
Jun
12
The Real Break-Up Is The Internal Crack-Up: On The Weakerthans’ "Left and Leaving"
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Lyrics:
My city’s still breathing, but barely it’s true
Through buildings gone missing like teeth.
Sidewalks are watching me think about you,
Sparkled with broken glass.
I’m back with scars to show.
Back with the streets I know
will never take me anywhere but here.
Those stains in the carpet, this drink in my hand,
the strangers whose faces I know.
We meet here for our dress rehearsal to say
“I wanted it this way.”
Wait for the year to drown.
Spring forward, fall back down.
I’m trying not to wonder where you are.
All this time
Lingers, undefined.
Someone choose
Who’s left and who’s leaving.
Memory will rust and erode into lists
Of all that you gave me:
Blankets, some matches, this pain in my chest,
the best parts of Lonely.
Duct-tape and soldered wires,
new words for old desires,
and every birthday card I threw away.
I wait in 4/4 time.
Count yellow highway lines
that you’re relying on to lead you home.
Commentary:
I mostly listen to classical music. The Well-Tempered Clavier is a particular addiction, as are Chopin’s Noctures and choral music.
This song gets to me like few pieces of popular music do. These lyrics are very well-done. And the time it’s talking about reminds me of times in my life that I never want to relive.
Any interpretation of anything has to start with what we know. The second stanza and the line “I’m trying not to wonder where you are” seems to be the easiest to understand. We’re at the stage of a relationship which is broken or breaking apart. The stage where you’re with your drinking buddies to drink and justify everything you did in the relationship and how she’s being unreasonable. The people you meet might as well be stains on the carpet, they’re just accidents; the essence of the activity is blowing one’s brains out with alcohol.
Moving ahead, we encounter exactly what’s going on:
All this time
Lingers, undefined.
Someone choose
Who’s left and who’s leaving.
We’re at the breaking stage, it seems. What does it mean, though, for one to be left, another to be leaving? Don’t people move apart simultaneously? Is our narrator biased, thinking that someone (almost assuredly him) will get hurt worse than another?
The first and next-to-last stanzas shed light on this while making the story even more complicated. Aging and suicide seem to be tied in that first stanza. Places rot. People cut themselves, both out of sacrifice (no relationship is easy) and out of despair (no one wants to be back where they started in this way). The next to last stanza picks up on this: what erodes memory is the lack of presence. Blankets and matches used to be exciting, used to be part of a desire that was living. Now they’re just items. Even the pain of desire itself has just become a pain in the chest. It is human presence that animates. Further, the “repairs” that one conducts after a broken relationship are just that - repairs, not healing. In a sense, all you’re doing is covering the absence, and one wonders if that covering is just as destructive as it is necessary - to throw away birthday cards is to forget about oneself, even as one ages.
The aging/suicide themes of the first stanza can be said to define the second stanza (suicide - drinking a ton, “stains in the carpet”) and the next to last (aging - losing memory, needing repairs). But that’s not quite right: our narrator throws birthday cards away. The implication is that aging and suicide are the same thing, that they’re the products of effort that’s exhausted itself because of lack of an object to love. An object worthy of love is life: it animates the mind, uniting the elements that create memories. And it destroys the cycle that are loveless years: “spring forward, fall back down.”
I guess, having considered all this, that to debate our narrator about being biased is petty. The pain from a breakup really might affect one worse than another. Let’s just take him at his word, that someone’s gotta be left, another has to leave. How does that work?
The cryptic ending gives us a clue:
I wait in 4/4 time.
Count yellow highway lines
that you’re relying on to lead you home.
This whole song is the mark of someone “left.” To be bound up in the lines that create measures on a sheet of music is the same as to be bound up in the streets of a city begging to be desolate and to also see your love fly away, using the same reasons you use to mourn as reasons to not be with you, perhaps.
The other thing about these last few words is even darker than that: In a sense, every breakup is mutual, because we believe for the sake of the relationship - it may not be true - that loving is a matter of choice. This song, then, is the “I’m killing my feelings for you” statement, maybe even more than a statement. It’s “I’m left, and you’re leaving, and that’s what it has to be.” The song itself is the impetus to kill the feelings one has for another, to pretend like a part of your life never happened and was utterly meaningless.
Apr
12
Words
Filed Under personal, weakerthans | Leave a Comment
I just wanted to say that I appreciate the time and thought you put into your lyrics: I feel it is that, above all, which creates the “honest” sound you’re looking for.
What is really wonderful is how I’m growing older with your work, and how it means more to me to each time I listen. Most bands make stuff for angsty teens and young adults that doesn’t deal with the issue of how to get beyond pain, but rather rejoices in “pain” as a mark of “being in love” which, in turn, makes one some sort of moral authority.
But every time I’m going through “Aside,” for example, I just keep realizing that pain is pain, sometimes stemming from the efforts needed to get over a relationship, and I would very much like the support of a cat named Virtue to help me let my losses dangle, and let me talk about how the weather used to be. And I hope.
2. We demand the wrong thing from communication: what we want is to merely speak, and our will be done.
We’re human, not God - not only is that not our place, but we wouldn’t enjoy getting our way so easily after the 300th time we tried it in 5 minutes.
I want too much too quickly: I just feel I’ve been too patient before, and left with nothing but dust. Sometimes, even less: would-be relationships have been more pain in some cases than actual ones.
And so I probably said the wrong thing. Or maybe I didn’t. I don’t know anymore. I just want to be me.
I just want to be happy.
The words I keep telling myself are that “mistakes happen, and when things matter, the mistakes don’t count.” I hope they’re true.
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