I think that the saddest emotion in the world just might be resignation. Deep, gaping sorrow can be devastating; the ache of loneliness can be a torture; an angry hurt can blaze and blaze; and yet, there's something even sadder in that moment when you swallow the sorrow and say that you'll move on. When you pretend to have bright eyes, when you try to have a bright smile, when you nod and say "right. fine. okay."
I've long been a collector of sad music. And the two tracks I'm posting today are perhaps the crown jewels. Not as tortured as Bright Eyes's "If Winter Ends," not as paralyzed as Beck's "I Get Lonesome," not as broken as "Pyramid Song," but maybe even more stinging. These singers don't whinge and whine about how unhappy they are; they don't tell us about their blues, as if asking for sympathy. Instead, they sing to one person in particular, a lover who isn't, and they repeat the devastatingly cheerful cliche that we saw earlier: "right. fine. okay." It's all so beautifully done that maybe you miss it, maybe you think the kinds words are sincere, that the "have a good life" isn't laced with irony, with resignation - that the song is a happy one, and not the grey-inked opposite.
Jude - "I Do". It was with this track that Jude justified his existence. His album is pleasant, it's witty, but suddenly, here, it's as if his hipster duds have been torn right open: the shirt-buttons ripped out, the sunglasses smashed, the suede shoes burning slowly into ash. It's a song about love; a song sung in a bright voice. But there's so much hidden by that sly, invulnerable tone: so much that's been left behind. Jude took a risk when he made "I Do" so terribly sweet, in voice and in instrumentation (strings, acoustic guitar); but the pay-off is worth it. The beauty gradually becomes monstrous, twisted, tragic. The pretty song only underlines Jude's masochism, the despair he's trying to obscure.
The Montgolfier Brothers - "The World is Flat". Here's a song you can hear a dozen times without realizing the anguish it conceals: there's the crystalline flutter of guitars, like a dream composed by Clientele, a slow piano and Alan Quigley's lulling voice. He seems to be singing of a perfect relationship - "we'll watch the dawn," he sings, "and we will raise a family. . . I'll be the apple of your parents' eyes / they'll raise a glass to us / and I won't drink the bottle dry." It's in that negative, the "won't drink," that there's a sign of what's going on. That the entire song calmly, discreetly proceeds from a false premise. There it is in the second line: "The world is flat and I've still got a chance with you." The lovers' idyll necessarily collapses, necessarily drifts to shipwreck: the divorce is a certainty, a yesterday. "God is good and / life is fair," Quigley sings, and there's so little bitterness left, so little misery: just that permanent heartbreaking ache, that tragic, unredeemable resignation. Ye gods. (for more on this record, see close your eyes.)
and on a happier note...
updated the blogroll. thanks for the suggestions. the following have been added to my daily mp3 blog fix (ie, they're the ones who post music that makes my heart sing). i'm sure they're old hat to all of you: but they're fresh to me, and truly delightful! to all these musicbloggers, my thanks!
fingertips music - grand, varied, outta-nowhere legal mp3s.
cocaine blunts & hip-hop tapes - tracks and news from a discerning, eclectic hip-hop ear.
new(ish) - good indie-ness, with a nice emphasis on folk + idm.
soul-sides - oliver delivers vintagesoul mp3s!
the big ticket - indie rock and sports and simple, contagious enthusiasm.
talkie walkie - group livejournal with all sorts of things: the bestest is the indie canadiana.