The Floating World: Porno
[Note: This actually went up at the journal on Wednesday, but Blogger was being tetchy and I forgot to put this over here when it stopped.]
1. Fatigue
So I'm walking down Gordon Street, 9 am Saturday morning, bone-deep tired. I haven't slept in 24 hours, and while I know people who can do that, I can't. As was customary I'd passed out for twenty minutes on the Greyhound home, fortuitously waking up just before I had to get off. Again. The walk home was maybe five minutes, but it seemed like hours.
One of the things I like about Clinic, completely separate from their sound, is the lyrics. Or rather, I like that I don't know what the lyrics are, most of the time. Ade Blackburn has, as I've said before, one of my favorite voices ever, but it sure isn't designed for comprehensibility. Slurring and hissing and mewling and sliding all over the place, it's an awesome instrument, but leaves you in doubt as to whether he's actually singing in English. (His speaking voice is perfectly normal, if a little softer and quieter than most, I should add) It doesn't exactly help that on some songs, he's not; a favorite is "The Second Line", with its incredibly catchy refrain of "Diggi-diggi de-mah-mah-non".
"Porno" possesses its rather unfortunate and misleading name because at the beginning of the track and again midway through, Blackburn moans. I wouldn't say it is particularly sensual or arousing (there's a reason it's called "Porno" and not "Sex"; and in context with the rest of the song, the hint of loneliness already present in the sound is only magnified), but it certainly does sound quasi-orgasmic. The song has already started with papery, hollow drums and Brian Campbell's bass, a forlorn little mellotron off in the distance, when Blackburn starts. Live he just has the same posture as during their other songs, eyes squeezed shut, tendons on his neck jutting out. Both hands are, I hasten to add, clearly visible. There's something slightly disturbing out hearing so private-sounding a noise from a man in a surgeon's garb ten feet away from you.
But anyay, don't let that put you off. The rest of the song continues on in the same doomily restrained fashion, but it quickly becomes clear once Blackburn starts actually singing that it is a thing of stranger and sadder beauty than you might think.
On my walk home, brain under a blizzard of sleep, random snatches of Clinic lyrics doppler through my mind, achieving almost talismanic qualities. I get some of the words wrong, of course, because I don't know what they're supposed to be and my mind fills in the blanks in a way that might make sense. "Got it to get and get it over and got it to get and get it low", "Mother mother mother don’t be gauche", "The best is left here between us and the best is left here you know" and a long passage from "Porno":
Places, I'm stuck in places
Success, complacent
Stuck off
I'm bored I'm bored I'm bored wake up
2. Aside: Elton John
The finest lines Elton John has ever come up with are not, in my opinion, anything from his heyday, although I'm certainly not knocking his output from then. Instead it is from a song the video of which remains one of Robert F. Downey Jr.'s best performances, so perfectly married to its song and one of the best videos of the decade:
I want a love that don't mean a thing
And that's the love I want
I want love
They're pretty successful just on the screen, the push and pull between naked need and casual dismissal, between a man's idea of what love is and the actual, inferior/superior reality clearly evident. But as so much else with music, you really need to hear them be sung, hear the delivery John gives them.
It's not a very showy performance, John never breaks down or sobs out a line or something like that; he sounds tired, and hopeful, and uncertain. It's not very showy, but it is very human.
3. Performance
It turns out, to my complete unsurprise, that I'm slightly off about the passage from "Porno". The first two lines I have right, the third maybe, and the fourth definitely starts with "I'm bored I'm bored I'm bored", but then what starts out sounding like "wake up" only winds up being the first half of a word or phrase. I can't tell what it might be. But you get the idea in any case; this is a song of utter alienation (again, "Porno", not "Sex" and certainly not "Love"). He's not just stuck in a place he doesn't want to be, he's "stuck in places". Which is irresolvable; where can one go and not be in a place? Existence drags heavy on the washed out drums and slogging tempo of "Porno".
But again, you have to hear it. It's an amazing song, something I knew but didn't know until I saw it live. It delineates possibly the nadir of human existence, without ever telling any sort of story (but those moans, again, in context seem so despairing of human contact), but it's not hopeless. The mere fact of the song's existence proves thatl I don't particularly believe that Blackburn or anyone else in Clinic lived through this sort of thing, and it's not as if the song will put you into a funk if you listen to it. But music needs to reflect all these things, all facets of human life.
4. Aside: Movies
The best line from Lost In Translation is "You're not hopeless". And the best line from Big Fish is "It doesn't always make sense and most of it never happened...but that's what kind of story this is."
1. Fatigue
So I'm walking down Gordon Street, 9 am Saturday morning, bone-deep tired. I haven't slept in 24 hours, and while I know people who can do that, I can't. As was customary I'd passed out for twenty minutes on the Greyhound home, fortuitously waking up just before I had to get off. Again. The walk home was maybe five minutes, but it seemed like hours.
One of the things I like about Clinic, completely separate from their sound, is the lyrics. Or rather, I like that I don't know what the lyrics are, most of the time. Ade Blackburn has, as I've said before, one of my favorite voices ever, but it sure isn't designed for comprehensibility. Slurring and hissing and mewling and sliding all over the place, it's an awesome instrument, but leaves you in doubt as to whether he's actually singing in English. (His speaking voice is perfectly normal, if a little softer and quieter than most, I should add) It doesn't exactly help that on some songs, he's not; a favorite is "The Second Line", with its incredibly catchy refrain of "Diggi-diggi de-mah-mah-non".
"Porno" possesses its rather unfortunate and misleading name because at the beginning of the track and again midway through, Blackburn moans. I wouldn't say it is particularly sensual or arousing (there's a reason it's called "Porno" and not "Sex"; and in context with the rest of the song, the hint of loneliness already present in the sound is only magnified), but it certainly does sound quasi-orgasmic. The song has already started with papery, hollow drums and Brian Campbell's bass, a forlorn little mellotron off in the distance, when Blackburn starts. Live he just has the same posture as during their other songs, eyes squeezed shut, tendons on his neck jutting out. Both hands are, I hasten to add, clearly visible. There's something slightly disturbing out hearing so private-sounding a noise from a man in a surgeon's garb ten feet away from you.
But anyay, don't let that put you off. The rest of the song continues on in the same doomily restrained fashion, but it quickly becomes clear once Blackburn starts actually singing that it is a thing of stranger and sadder beauty than you might think.
On my walk home, brain under a blizzard of sleep, random snatches of Clinic lyrics doppler through my mind, achieving almost talismanic qualities. I get some of the words wrong, of course, because I don't know what they're supposed to be and my mind fills in the blanks in a way that might make sense. "Got it to get and get it over and got it to get and get it low", "Mother mother mother don’t be gauche", "The best is left here between us and the best is left here you know" and a long passage from "Porno":
Places, I'm stuck in places
Success, complacent
Stuck off
I'm bored I'm bored I'm bored wake up
2. Aside: Elton John
The finest lines Elton John has ever come up with are not, in my opinion, anything from his heyday, although I'm certainly not knocking his output from then. Instead it is from a song the video of which remains one of Robert F. Downey Jr.'s best performances, so perfectly married to its song and one of the best videos of the decade:
I want a love that don't mean a thing
And that's the love I want
I want love
They're pretty successful just on the screen, the push and pull between naked need and casual dismissal, between a man's idea of what love is and the actual, inferior/superior reality clearly evident. But as so much else with music, you really need to hear them be sung, hear the delivery John gives them.
It's not a very showy performance, John never breaks down or sobs out a line or something like that; he sounds tired, and hopeful, and uncertain. It's not very showy, but it is very human.
3. Performance
It turns out, to my complete unsurprise, that I'm slightly off about the passage from "Porno". The first two lines I have right, the third maybe, and the fourth definitely starts with "I'm bored I'm bored I'm bored", but then what starts out sounding like "wake up" only winds up being the first half of a word or phrase. I can't tell what it might be. But you get the idea in any case; this is a song of utter alienation (again, "Porno", not "Sex" and certainly not "Love"). He's not just stuck in a place he doesn't want to be, he's "stuck in places". Which is irresolvable; where can one go and not be in a place? Existence drags heavy on the washed out drums and slogging tempo of "Porno".
But again, you have to hear it. It's an amazing song, something I knew but didn't know until I saw it live. It delineates possibly the nadir of human existence, without ever telling any sort of story (but those moans, again, in context seem so despairing of human contact), but it's not hopeless. The mere fact of the song's existence proves thatl I don't particularly believe that Blackburn or anyone else in Clinic lived through this sort of thing, and it's not as if the song will put you into a funk if you listen to it. But music needs to reflect all these things, all facets of human life.
4. Aside: Movies
The best line from Lost In Translation is "You're not hopeless". And the best line from Big Fish is "It doesn't always make sense and most of it never happened...but that's what kind of story this is."
