I like church. It's like a battery recharge, or a realignment, or time spent with a good friend. You feel edified. It's also exhausting, with all those people there, and me re-examining how I've been living my life since the last time I entered a reverent place of worship. It sounds an awful lot like I've been doing my Christianity wrong, with that tendency to live a week and then be a Christian on Sundays, but I'm really...
Actually, I'm doing it wrong. Not terribly wrong. I'm not putting words in God's mouth and persecuting His children for the sake of my own perverted version of justice. At least not consciously, or on a daily basis. If I do do that, I want you to tell me right away. If I'm a good man I'll shut up and walk away to pick myself apart in privacy. But yeah, like most people, I'm actually kind of good. But that makes my flaws all that much more terrible, and when I'm aware of that I pursue my Savior simply because He fixes like no one else.
I've mentioned before that I hate mistakes. The worst mistakes in my eyes are the ones that can't be fixed—that can't, in some way, be undone. I'm talking about mistakes you can't apologize for, that leave something broken and you powerless to make it better.
I follow Christ because there is no brokenness He cannot mend.
We've come to a sort of crossroads in our walk through Forget and Not Slow Down. "Part of It" is central to the album, both because it begins the middle of the emotional narrative and because of how it fills this space. Like "Candlelight" before it, this song has an afterthought (by the name of "Outro") which echoes the thrust of the song in moving forward through the album.
The most important aspect of this song from an album-wide perspective is that this is where Thiessen's "forget and not slow down" enamel cracks and we get a clearer glimpse of his condition. Pay close attention to what he says in this song:
Part of It
(lyrics by Matthew Thiessen)
I've been working with adhesives:
Chains and locks and ropes with knots to tether,
But nothing's sticking to the pieces—
I can't seem to hold it all together.
But you should know
Because that explains
Why this all just fell apart.
It's not the end of the world
Just you and me
We're a part of it—everyone
We're a part of it—everything
And if a nightmare ever does unfold
Perspective is a lovely hand to hold.
Well I've been trying to ingest this
But everything to me just seems like nonsense,
And I'm not sure if I can get it.
I guess it's time for me to grow a conscience
To combat the lapse
That explains why all of this simply collapsed.
It's not the end of the world
Just you and me
We're a part of it—everyone
We're a part of it—everything
And if a nightmare ever does unfold
Perspective is a lovely hand to hold.
It's been forever since I've gone
But I'm the Cusack on the lawn
Of your heart.
May be forever till I go
But before then you should know
I could tear that place apart
I could tear that place apart
I swear this to you
I wish that this was not the truth
But it's something that you fell into
And crawling out is hard when you
Are not so sure it's what you wanna do—
Not convinced it's what you wanna do.
It's just the weight of the world
Giving out under the string
We're a part of it—everyone
We're a part of it—everything
And when a nightmare finally does unfold—
A nightmare finally shows—
It's not the end of the world
Just a calamity
We're a part of it everyone
We're a part of it everything
And when a nightmare finally does unfold
Perspective is a lovely hand to hold.
Outro
(lyrics by Matthew Thiessen)
I swear this to you
I wish that this was not the truth
But it's something that you fell into
And crawling out is hard when you
Are not so sure it's what you wanna do
I swear this to you
(When a nightmare finally does unfold)
I wish that this was not the truth
(Perspective is a lovely hand to hold)
But it's something that you fell into
(Perspective is a lovely hand to hold)
This choice is hard to make when you
Are not convinced it's what you wanna do.
When a nightmare finally does unfold
Perspective is a lovely hand to hold.
----
First of all, Thiessen's word picture in this first verse is awesome. "Adhesives" obviously not restricted to glue, and all this because he's trying to hold together what he and She both know has already fallen apart. I'm also a big fan of the guitar work and the reflective tone Thiessen starts with that escalates quickly into the complex emotions presented in the chorus.
"It's not the end of the world, just you and me" puts it pretty darn well. "It" being Thiessen's continued insistence that life goes on, even as he admits he's a bit worse off than he first let on. It's not the end of the world, just a nightmare, just the weight of the world giving out, just a calamity. Not the worst thing, but it's bad. Yet the chorus ends with the poignant statement "perspective is a lovely hand to hold," which is exactly what Thiessen's trying to achieve so that he can rise above the raw emotional core. That seems to be the whole purpose of this album aside of a work of art. He can't forget the hurt, the unseating, until he puts it all in a proper perspective. And he's loosening a bit at the seams here.
He admits that he's trying to get a handle on things, but it's not settling in his stomach well and he's got some growing to do. Maybe that statement was a little too esoteric, but it's all there in the second verse, man.
Need more proof about Thiessen loosening at the seams? Check out the bridge. He's hanging around, making [some sort of movie reference involving John Cusack that almost entirely escapes me], and he might be around even longer. More importantly, before he leaves, you should know (and repetition helps you not forget) he "could tear that place apart." Nah man, he's not upset.
Another note about the bridge? Here his imagery is of staying in place, thrown into contrast with the themes of travel that have been running through a lot of the songs so far and even ones to come. I might even draw a parallel between Thiessen's restlessness here and a line at the end of the album (shh, we'll get there when we get there).
Then Thiessen slows down to let "you" (the girl) know the truth, which is something she stumbled on and can't get away from easily. He doesn't really clarify the truth he's swearing to, so I'm left to assume he's talking about the subject of the chorus, because he's not just telling himself that the end of "you and me" is not the "end of the world." This is a sort of precursor to the mellowed out final song on the album, as well as Savannah, and just generally setting up a precedent for the slower, most retrospective aspects of music to come.
There's a lot of battle in this song between the chill, fun Relient K and Thiessen flipping out a little, and that, too, is why this song is central to the album. After "Part of It" and "Outro" Thiessen spends the next two songs coping a little, to the point where he's confident enough to say he's "Over It." But I'm getting ahead of myself a little. There's a weird bit in this song I can't quite figure out. Almost all the lyrics lists, and maybe even the official lyrics, seem to agree that the line is "giving (or given) out under the string," but I don't feel like the weight of the world would give out under a string. I've always sort of felt like that line should end in strain, but listening closely it's pretty obvious he's singing string. So I have no idea what that means, and it's weird. There ya go, not every little Relient K lyric is chock full of great hidden meaning. Or maybe it is, and I just can't get it.
Tomorrow we'll talk about "Therapy." I was going to say it's one of my favorite songs on the album, but you may have noticed I kinda love them all. See you then!
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