People who know me for quite some time, know that one of my favourite music genres is Punk/Punk Rock. I like it probably because it's so full of energy; it perfectly connects with the anxiousness, rebeldy, and downright clumsiness of modern adolescence (A-dol-ece : del Dolor). About the last part I speak for myself: I remember being so full of energy, but then again so downright clumsy and impacient to express in clever ways...that's how punk rock transmited me the possibilities of expression in a raw medium...one that can be extremelly powerful and moving.
Then, you usually grow up; tastes in music change that are more according to a more 'mature' lifestyle...punk then turns into a funny reminder of youth and boredom, of good parties and good friends we rarely see...or something mostly associated with nostalgia.
In my particular case, I was never able to 'outgrow' punk music. It's about a raw (if pre-fabricated) passion; feelings so strong and outright simple that only simple things and strong passions can do. But it is true i'm no longer familiar, interested...or to put more correctly...'close' to most punk themes: I don't really believe in Anarchy; I dislike talking about failed romances; I don't consider myself a politicaly minded person; I don't party as hard as some punks do...so the only topics left are either Punks that use humour (very few can pull it off); Punks that sing stories (a trend that also very few pull off with a straight face) and Punk music that shares a very basic feeling: opression, hate, love, boredom, death, loneliness, etc. Feelings that everyone has in many stages of their lives.
Bands like The Replacements, Early 'Libertines' and specially 'X' come to my mind. Personally, i'll never forget the first time i've heard 'The Replacements - Bastards of Young': I heard it on the year 1999, just some days or weeks before New Years. So one day I was watching MTV (Back when I had cable) and they were showing the best 100 videos of the/that Century. It shocked me. I never forgot that song. I thought it was an anthem, a call for arms. I remember I downloaded the song right away and heard it for hours. Just recently I bought their records and every time I listen to them it makes go wanna yell all I want to take off from my chest.
There's a reason because I fell in love with these bands, they not only show a raw feeling a place some rapid chords and rythm over it, they show a picture of angst not common with adolescents, but with young adults: frustrations, love, failure, death and perseverance, addictions and ultimately: good hearted humor. Not a political agenda but a message from the heart; Not platonic relationships but the real meaning of love: random encounters, love by transit, lust and it's vicious circles, relationships and their impact in one's life...so in a nutshell: just the basic feelings one can get to experience, but with more time to realize the impact in oneself.
That's why the album showed on the start of this post is there: it's easily one of the best records i've ever listened. I escentially love the first three 'X' records and the Let It Be-Tim-Pleased to Meet Me saga from 'The Replacements' mostly the same, but 'Under The Big Black Sun' has and probably will have a lot more of impact in my life.
I cant' talk much about the music. Since i'm not a musicitian, and probably all the reviews that praise the album talk a lot about it. But I can tell you about the album itself and what does it make me feel.
Some of the main topics in the album are about very 'dark' themes: being stranded in a place you don't know, love/lust and it's ultimatelly consequences and mainly: Death. Exene Cervenka's (The band's female lead singer and songwriter) sister died in an accident during the making of the album, so most of the lyrics reflect the painful times she was going through. The music, which varies extensively either serves of a tempo for the melancholy in it or it works as a sharp contrast of irony on the thougtful lyrics in it. An very good way to summarize this all comes from this review from 'Rolling Stone Magazine':
'Under the Big Black Sun is an album of visceral glimpses into the heart of the night, leavened by a salving dose of existential humor. There is an aura of the underworld to the lyrics, evoking the nervous feeling of being awake in the wee hours in an unfamiliar place, with some elusive, mortal peril lurking nearby. In both a literal and figurative sense, death is a constant, hovering presence: figuratively, in the shadowy metaphor of the big black sun and in the spiritual death of adultery and other crimes of passion.... If you can never completely escape the specter of death, X seems to be saying, at least you can dance your way free for a while.'- PARKE PUTERBAUGH.
And it's specially what the title track from this album makes me feel. I take the song as how someone has lost faith in general, keeping herself awake through irony, adultry and memories...boozing up, having a smoke, going around empty while killing oneself by doing shallow things, but still...at the same time, dancing the night away...That all is so pointless that the one thing you have left are just memories; memories of the love lost, the friends, loved ones and family you had before they died or left and the courage to say 'Good Morning' to all of that. Even though the lyrics are so pessimistic, the tune of the song is so upbeat, that's so full of contrast and irony that I can't help but to sing along and cover myself with the shit that are all the dumb shores and attitudes one has to keep up everyday...but not going against all that...just smile to it back, and keep on.
I find this song, one of the most encouraging I have ever heard.
These are the lyrics to the song:
What i did on my vacation for the last ten years
Took pictures of your town plaid perfume on my breath
I mean i've been drinking scotch while touring through your town
Adultry makes you give things away it gets you confused
Adultry takes a one room vacation then it gets you alone
Turns into a hoonymoon scream then you have to change the sheets
Smoke in one hand looking for a light
Martini in the other hand
Pointing out midnight
Now that you pulled the school underwater and drowned the prom
Which man will you save for this friday you can put him in a fish pond
And watch him swim around then have a catholic dinner
If it isn't men it's death it's the same old testament
At the cross her station keeping stood the mournful mother weeping
Where my man extended hung driven with nails to wood
Smoke in one hand looking for a drink
Drink in the other hand
Pointing out midnight
At my desk as you're sleeping as the big deal of death
Kills me and starts leaving everbody asks me how I'm doing
I'm doing everything alone rave on children and try to sleep
Larks must sing grave, deep melodies happy that they die
The sly brown fox pulled up a glass pulled up a chair
And yanked out my hair when i tried to sit I fell down when I woke up he was gone
So one has a smoke one has a drink
The man is gone, mary's dead
Good morning midnight
"In love, one and one are one." - Sartre
