A lot of the time when I'm heading down the road in the car I wind up listening to a particular album. I've mentioned it before. It's my current favorite album of all time, Forget and Not Slow Down. I've been thinking, and I've decided I'm going to go through the whole album and give it the same treatment I gave "Sahara" a while back. I'll probably talk about Sahara when I get to that place, and link to the blog where I talk about that song in detail. I'll warn you again, if you're not prepared for a long blog post, save this for later. Because this is definitely going to be a doozy.
I'm going to start with the first song, which is titular (for those of you who don't know, that means it shares its name with the album). But before I let you read the lyrics of "Forget and Not Slow Down" I want to talk a little bit more about the album first.
When I did the blog on "Sahara" I think I gave some of the context for that song (and incidentally this whole album), in that Matt Thiessen, Relient K's frontman, suffered a pretty harsh engagement break-off not long before he was supposed to get married, and that experience was the fuel and subject matter for the album that came afterwards. Originally, this sounds like it might be a bad idea, but Thiessen has cultivated an artist's touch, the which he uses to exquisite ends in Forget and Not Slow Down. There's more to the framework I want to outline for the album as a whole. Thiessen has said (via an interview that had been posted on Relient K's Myspace back when bands were making Myspaces to connect with teens—back when people used Myspace) said songwriting for him works a lot like prayer, and I'd like to put forward that many (if not all) of the songs on FaNSD are prayers, and that the album as a whole functions in some ways like a confession, not necessarily of guilt, but of painful experience.
Part of what makes this fascination and so good is that in putting the album together like he did, Thiessen gave us a good long glimpse at his thought process. I'll be talking about that more down the road. But we'll start with the first song.
"Forget and Not Slow Down," as the initial song on the album, serves as an introduction to the rest of the work, and itself frames Thiessen's mindset. In short, he'd rather forget what's happened and keep moving than bog himself down by dwelling on it. This point is made pretty clearly in the song, because the phrase is repeated five times throughout the song, usually as part of the chorus. In fact, now I'll let you read through the lyrics to the song as I've heard them. There could be a few quibbles over a word or two, but I think this is a suitably accurate transcription of what Thiessen sings. So here you are, read for yourself:
Forget and Not Slow Down
(lyrics by Matthew Thiessen)
--the next station is Concourse B—Concourse B, as in Bravo--
How many times can I push it aside?
Is it time I befriended all the ghosts
Of all the things that haunt me most
So they leave me alone
Move on with my life
Be certain the steps of left and right
Don't fight the direction of upright
I'd rather forget and not slow down
Than gather regret for the things I can't change now.
If I become what I can't accept
Resurrect the saint from within the wretch
Pour over me and wash my hands of it.
It's time to decide she's out of my mind
'Cause it'll be me unless I put some thoughts to rest
And leave some thoughts behind
I'll wash the glint in my eye
Shine up the spring in my step
And it could be blinding depending
On the amount of You that I reflect
'Cause I could spend my life just
Trying to sift through what I could have done better
But what good do what ifs do?
Oh oh, Oh oh
There's something I should tell you now:
I'd rather forget and not slow down
Than gather regret for the things I can't change now.
If I become what I can't accept
Resurrect the saint from within the wretch
Pour over me and wash my hands
Pour over me and wash my hands...
'Cause I could spend my life just
Trying to sift through
What I could have done better
But what good do what ifs do?
Oh oh, Oh oh
There's something I should tell you
Oh oh, Oh oh
There's something I should tell you now:
I'd rather forget and not slow down
Than gather regret for what I can't change now.
If I become what I cannot accept
Resurrect the saint
Within the wretch
I'd rather forget and not slow down
Than gather regret for the things I can't change now.
If I become what I can't accept
Resurrect the saint from within the wretch
I'd rather forget and not slow down
Than gather regret for the things I can't change now.
If I become what I can't accept
Resurrect
Resurrect
Pour over me and wash my hands
Pour over me and wash my hands of it.
----
Now, you have noticed that Thiessen is saying he'd rather forget and not slow down, not dwell on the past and what it's down, but this is the first song of an album where he seems to do just that. I don't think that's a mistake, folks. There are a couple other notes I want to make about the album down here. There are a lot of things I'm saying about the album as a whole, but this song is kinda central to the whole thing, so this was to be expected.
Surprisingly enough for an album about a painful and difficult breakup, there are few songs that are handled with a mournful attitude. The whole first half of the album is pretty upbeat, at least musically. Later on we get to the quieter part of Thiessen's psyche, but not before we have some fun along the way. Quite frankly the music Relient K makes in this album is nothing short of beautiful, and in my own opinion Thiessen's performances are stellar, especially in their nuance. I think the beauty and "spring" in Thiessen's musical "step" for this album are part of the attitude he espouses here, in this first song. He's not going to slow down. He's not going to let his art get dragged in the mud by this experience. And he doesn't. Ugh, let me tell you—okay, I'll stop gushing and get on with the analysis.
The song begins very quietly, and without music. Instead you hear the rush of some public place of transportation, perhaps a trainway of some sort. If you (carefully) turn up the sound at the beginning, you can hear a female announcer clearly speak the words I put between dashes before the lyrics kick in. This little quirky intro sets the scene for moving on, just another flourish of a motif that occurs throughout the album.
Moving into the first verse, we hear that Thiessen is struggling with his demons. He keeps "push[ing] it aside" but it doesn't seem to want to let him go. He ponders ways to make peace with what he's dealing with, and his focus is to do this without compromising his integrity.
Then we hit the chorus. You'll notice that the song structure for "FaNSD" is fairly traditional with a couple verses and a catchy chorus that gets repeated quite often. Part of the catchiness of the chorus is one of the signatures of Relient K's song style: one line ends simultaneous with the beginning of the next. In this instance, the word "now" is sung at the same time as "if." The whole chorus isn't like this, but the usage of this make the chorus move forward more quickly than you'd expect for how many words in it. The other secret to fitting so many words in is that Thiessen can twist his tongue around pretty much whatever he wants to sing.
Aside from the idea that must be hammered home by now about forgetting and speeding right along, the chorus expresses another idea tied to Thiessen's desire for integrity. In the event that he falters, he asks God to bring out the best in him again. This is a pretty obvious interpretation of "if I become what I cannot accept resurrect the saint from within the wretch." It's an imperative statement, which includes requests, and it certainly isn't directed at himself. And to go along with that he includes strong Christian imagery in "pour over me and wash my hands." Christ's blood pours over us meta-literally to cleanse us, and it's in keeping with Thiessen's attitude to allude to Pilate's refusal to identify himself with those who called for Christ's crucifixion. Referring to the Godhead by His blood uses a literary technique called synecdoche, to use a part of something or someone to refer to the whole. This thematic element of the song recurs a few times in the album, and it points out that, while Relient K has gone "mainstream" (or rather, that the band is no longer confined to performing and producing albums under the "Christian" umbrella of the music industry) Thiessen and his bandmates have certainly not given up on their lifestyle, or on explicitly including allusions and direct references to their Christian lifestyle and the messages therein in their music. They just do it with a bit more class than usual.
In the second verse Thiessen is a lot clearer about what's bothering him, by slipping in the simple, loaded pronoun "she" as the subject that "it's time to decide" is "out of" his "mind." Or he'll be out of his. That's a clever play there, that's easier to see in writing than it is to hear it. It makes me smile. Then he talks about washing and shining two metaphors for a sunny disposition, for the purpose of reflecting "You." I capitalize You because I'm quite certain he's talking to God here, supported by the content of the chorus and the common Christian idea of "reflecting God's light."
And then, in case you didn't get it yet, Thiessen doesn't care to bother with "what ifs."
And the rest of what's interesting about the song is musical, because all the words from then on are repeated, other than the "there's something I should tell you" bit. That phrase is part of Thiessen's framing of the album, because he's telling you here, at the beginning of his album covering his experience and reaction to what's happened to him, that he's moving on from what's inside. This is his confession, his coping mechanism, his "Therapy."
And with that, my analysis of "Forget and Not Slow Down" is at an end. I encourage you to go take a listen to the song (and the rest of the album too if you can) to get a real taste of what I'm talking about in this blog post. See you tomorrow, when I'll (probably) talk to you about the next song on the album, "I Don't Need a Soul."
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