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.

Disremember While Maintaining Speed

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."

On Sahara and Songwriting

I'm sure you all know that I'm super excited about Guild Wars 2, but that's not the only thing coming out this year that I'm giddy over.

Have you ever heard of Relient K?  They're my favorite band, and I grew up on them.  They've improved their sound with every album.  Now, I believe, they're recording their latest album, and I'm (quietly) off the wall about it.  What I feel like doing today is posting the lyrics to one of my favorite songs by RK, and maybe commenting a bit.  Bear with me, then, because this is going to be a long blog post.


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.


Why is this my favorite Relient K song?  Well, if you haven't heard it, then you don't know the part where the music itself is excellent, but I might explain some of the more writing-oriented reasons why I think this song reigns.

It starts with context.  The lead singer/front man and the writer of all (or almost all) of Relient K's songs, Matt Thiessen, went through a harsh break-up only a little while before they were going to get married.  The album Forget and Not Slow Down which this song is from is a true artist's response to this event in his life.

Throughout his career as a songwriter Thiessen has used clever wordplay to make his songs catch, and Sahara doesn't shy away from this.  Several times in the song he starts a phrase with one idea and melts that into another.  For example, the phrase "this feeling of desertion" in the first verse functions as both the object he is trying to "overcome" with a "passion from inside" and the subject of the final statement in the verse, which asserts that this same "desertion" (which is where the title comes from, I suspect) he suffers from is still better than not knowing love.  He relays both of these ideas (the muster of his passions to fight his pain and his assertion of the value of the thing which brought him pain) without repeating himself, and in a matter of moments.  In this way the writing is condensed and he came move on to the other ideas in the song.

Thiessen also uses the metaphor (which he references in a later song, something I adore in cohesive albums like this) of a lion (also "on his side") to ponder with some detachment what mistake brought him to where he is during this song.  He demonstrates, however, that his detachment isn't as strong as he pretends, when he repeats the question (lying, or pride?) before coming down again on his intimate knowledge of what it means to be desolate.

And then the bridge, which I geek about all over everything every time I hear it.  But it's one of those geek-outs where you're singing along at the top of your lungs after cranking up the music as high as you dare.  Incidentally, Thiessen brought in at least two guest singers (from outside the band) for this song, and their voices can be heard most distinctly in the bridge.  One of them happens to be his father (as far as I know).  The bridge begins as a retrospective about the relationship he had been in (not "easy to love"), and how he felt not "like a man" but "a cub"—which reinforces the metaphor of Thiessen as a lion—who wandered into the wilderness to be irrevocably changed.  It returns to the image of desolation and dying, as organs give way and scavengers are already approaching his body.  Then the bridge ends with Thiessen bringing home the truth of his faith.  He is not alone, and he'll be all right so long as Someone restores him.  This is even better in the contexts of prior songs on the album like Therapy which establish his plea for help.

Yeah, there's a few text walls in this post.  I, uh, don't like Thiessen's songwriting at all.  I don't know what you're talking about!

I think that's all for today.  Go take a break or something.

-shrugs-