Mohave

Things are gonna go a little differently today.  I think, for the sake of it, I'm still gonna post the lyrics to "Sahara" in this blog post, but I'm also linking to the post back in May where I first talked about the song at length.  It's right there, in that link that's all bolded and hopefully colored, so click on it to read what I've already said about Sahara.  Again, my plan is to repeat myself as little as possible.

Somewhat tangentially, I've been listening to the corresponding song on repeat for the last several days while blogging about them.  Which means that today I get to listen to "Sahara" over and over and over again.  Excellence.

Read the lyrics.  Catch you on the tail end.

Sahara
(lyrics by Matthew Thiessen)

Lying on my side knowing of thirst is how I'll die
Chalk on my tongue
Relying on the night
Beneath the dunes is where I lie to block the sun

Trying to ignite
Some sort of passion from inside to overcome
This feeling of desertion
Can't be worse than never having anyone

So I'll ask one thing
Just one thing
Of you
Don't ever turn me loose
Even when I turn my back

A lion on his side was it the lying
Or his pride which brought him down?
Once the king of beasts but
Now they feast on the thoughts beneath his vacant crown.

Trying to decide was it the lying
Or the pride which brought it down.
To be alone
To be dethroned
Believe me I know all about it now

So I'll ask one thing
Just one thing
Of you
Don't ever turn me loose
Even when I turn my back

I never told you then that I'd be easy to love
Supposedly I'm a man but I felt like a cub
I wandered into the plains further and farther away
Not ever knowing that I'd never come back the same

As my organs gave way I swear I felt something burst;
It's been thirteen days and now I'm dying of thirst
As for the birds of prey I pray that
Someone else will get here first

I am not alone
I'll be all right
Just take these bones
And breath them back to life

So I'll ask one thing
Just one thing
Of you
Don't ever turn me loose
So I'll ask one thing
Just one thing
Of you
Don't ever turn me loose (so I'll ask)
Don't ever turn me loose (one thing)
Don't ever turn me loose (one thing)
Even when I turn my back.


----


Right away we have that tone shift I mentioned a post or so ago.  "Over It" is pretty darn chill, and then all the sudden Thiessen's gonna die of thirst, and it sounds like he's actually pretty ticked about it, you know?  There's no song on the album that's as raw-voiced as "Sahara" is, that has so much bite and emotion colored on the rage end of the spectrum.  Part of this is the back-up voices behind him.  All the other voices in this song bring the energy too, and then there's the scoops.  Much of the chorus has subtly sliding notes with a dissonant effect.  This song ain't no pretty love ballad.  There's also the riffing guitars and pounding drums to contend with.  I've mentioned a few times how chill Thiessen has been till now.


Yeah, that doesn't apply to "Sahara."


You'll notice that even in this explosion of raw emotion Thiessen never directs ire at anyone in particular.  The subject of conversation here is the sense of dying alone in the desert, and a powerfully human defiance of this sense.  The first verse speaks of his knowledge of the coming end and the shelter he seeks from the sun, then it goes on to say that now he's "trying to ignite some sort of passion from inside to overcome this feeling of desertion."  This is a radical shift from the forgetting he seems to have been going for until now, and I say its an admission that while "time can let the mind forget" there's still the emotions to be dealt with, and all the bravado in the world can't hide how much a broken heart hurts.


This is a song about a man in pain, and it doesn't pull any punches.


Forget and Not Slow Down needed this song, or I don't think Thiessen would have written it.  Without "Sahara," I'm not sure the listener would realize what all the other songs were for.  And it's only now, more than halfway through the album, that Thiessen drops this bomb on us.  "Yeah guys, it hurts like hell.  More specifically, it hurts like I'm dying of exposure in the Sahara desert."  That's not literal quotes, but you get the idea.


Even so, Thiessen doesn't wallow.  There's work to be done, even when you're drying up in a blasted wasteland.  That's why he says "this feeling of desertion" he's fighting "can't be worse than never having anyone."  He still believes love is worth it, despite how it feels right now.  I have to point out, like I did the last time I talked about Sahara, that I love how he communicates his fight with "this feeling of desertion" and asserts his belief that it doesn't ruin the benefits of love without separating the clauses.  I should also talk about the other possible meaning of "never having anyone" as not necessarily referring just to romantic relationships (as it does idiomatically) but also to the idea of spending life utterly alone, as opposed to having loved ones and losing them.  Even now Thiessen's saying "things could still be worse."


And in the chorus, Thiessen makes an apology to God.  He asks God not to "turn [him] loose," even when he admittedly sometimes "turn[s] his back."  Thiessen knows himself well enough to know that he's not just a victim of desertion.  He does it to God himself.  So this song is layered again, as Thiessen knows firsthand now how desertion feels and so asks for forgiveness from the One he turns his back on.


The second verse, as I discuss briefly in my other post about "Sahara," introduces the metaphor of Thiessen as a lion.  This metaphor is important for a couple reason.  One, lions are close to the Sahara (geographically located on the same continent) and live on the Savannah, which is incidentally the title of the next song on the album.  And another, the metaphor comes back again explicitly in the end game.  We'll talk more about it there, but I wanted to point that out again so you have some foreshadowing (or maybe forewarning's a better word).  Again, I talked in my previous post about how Thiessen distances himself a bit from his "lying" and "pride" by placing them in the lion metaphor.  Incidentally, Thiessen also creates another metaphor for himself and his life, which turns the lion metaphor into a Narnian allusion, because he gives the lion a crown and a throne.  This does make it kind of sound like Thiessen is giving himself delusions of godhood, which is a sort of issue I've wrestled with on this album for a while.


But I think I get it now, in light of the chorus of "Sahara."  Now, Thiessen isn't saying that the Lion of Judah had lying or pride to bring Him down, but he is acknowledging both the imago dei and the desertion and desolation Christ suffered for our sins.  Thiessen sees this a little more clearly than he had before this break-up which has discombobulated him, as he says "to be alone, to be dethroned believe me I know all about it now."  


I've always taken the bridge's opening line "I never told you then that I'd be easy to love" as meant for Thiessen's ex, but the line also reminds me of one of his earlier songs, "Getting Into You," at one point in which Thiessen asks God if He knows what He's getting Himself into.  Funny that I thought of that, because of the many parallels I could find between the chill "Over It" and more angry prior songs like "Which to Bury," and this frenetic song has a parallel in a gentle song of worship.  


Thiessen extends his lion metaphor when he says he's supposed to have been a man but he felt like, not a child, but a cub.  He then admits that he wandered astray and that the journey changed him irrevocably.  He's dying, he's desolate, the scavengers are coming, but the bridge ends of a note of redemption.


"I am not alone," Thiessen says.  He's not the only one who's desolate.  He's not even abandoned in this desert like he feels like.  The Listener is there, and the line "to be alone, to be dethroned, believe me I know all about it" could easily have come from His lips.  Thiessen acknowledges this, and with this knowledge he knows he'll "be all right" so long as God "take[s] these bones and breathe[s] them back to life."


So he'll ask one thing of You.  Don't turn him loose, even when he turns his back.


Don't let me go, Daddy please don't let me go.  I'm sorry, don't let me go.


I think it's the child's pleading buried within the anguished rasping of a deserted man that make this song for me.  Or any number of things.  But that?  Oh man.

I don't think there's really anything else I can say about that right now.


I think Thiessen wasn't really honest about the content of his "therapy."  I think this song makes those car trips a little clearer to us.  I think it's also good that Thiessen's told us he's "over it" already.  We may be tempted not to believe him, but we know now that he's facing it down head on without slowing, just like he's been saying he wants to do all along.


"Savannah" is a bit slower paced compared to this one, and I've always viewed it as a breather to come down off the intensity of "Sahara."  We'll talk about that and it's "afterthought" "Baby" tomorrow, and after that there will be two more posts for Forget and Not Slow Down.  


I'm... not gonna think about that right now.


Catch ya later, folks.