By necessity, that is an evolving answer. Usually, you do not have an absolute favorite song, and by necessity, that is also a very personal question. Maybe your favorite song reminds you of a special person or a special time that you can not explain to others without sounding overtly sentimental or maudlin. I usually skip out on answering the favorite song question, but today I will offer you, all 4 of my readers, an insight into my own personal... psyche? I will write here about my own personal Favorite Album, and explain why.
The best songs, to me, are the ones to which each listener can apply their own personal experiences and meanings. As such, one of my all-time favorite artists, Nine Inch Nails, seems to master this idea. Nine Inch Nails, for those of you who do not know, is an Industrial band consisting of one guy - Trent Reznor. Every one of his songs certainly means something to him, and he always shies away from saying exactly what in interviews, because he feels that by him saying "Big Man With A Gun" is about the media reduces what it could possibly mean to someone who thought it was about, say, the evils of a rapist. Songs are about what the listener thinks they are about, regardless of the writer's intentions (I agree with this and disagree, but that is a different blog).
The album that means the most to me is filled with songs which I can interpret into my own life and attribute its own meaning that applies to my own experiences, joys, and sorrows.
Every track on Nine Inch Nails's 2005 album With Teeth means something to me and can be applied to my own experiences, joys, and sorrows. For better or worse. Now, I present each track, what they mean to me, and a lyric sample.
Track 1 - "All The Love In The World" - Being ignored in favor of something or someone which is, at least to you, obviously undeserving of praise or regard. Therefore, is the problem with everyone else not getting the point, or is it with you not getting the point? You'd better just go along to get along.
Sample Lyric: "Hiding in the crowd I'm all alone. No one's heard a single word I've said; they don't sound as good outside my head. It looks as though the past is here to stay."
Track 2 - "You Know What You Are?" - Being surrounded by people who are fake or untrustworthy, and becoming tired of going along to get along. The problem is not you, because you tried to fit in, but were not being true to yourself, and the "fake" people saw through your chicanery and maybe even ironically called you out for being a fake person. Perhaps the title is meant for you, and not the fake people.
Sample Lyric: "You better take a good look because I'm full of shit. With every bit of my heart I have tried to believe in it. You can dress it all up, you can try to pretend, but you can't change anything in the end."
Track 3 - "The Collector" - Being unable to express emotion. This song is very close to me, as I suffer from this exact problem. I term it anhedonia, but that is not quite right, because that is the inability to feel pleasure, and that my problem is with the automatic suppression of emotion. I seem to be able to express only one emotion easily - rage. But I have learned to live with this. I do show other emotions, but usually only in the company of my wife. Those last couple of sentences neatly explain the name of my blog. I can actually trace back to a memory when I was young (about 8 or 9 years old) and saw something tragic, expressed pity and sorrow, and was (or felt) ridiculed by the loved ones with me; this event was the cause of my stoicism. Many in my life have commented on this trait and it even became a joke. But the joke has its dark side. Emotion, like urine, MUST come out eventually, whether you are able to handle the power of the flow or not. But every time, it seems easier to just hold it in. I truly let loose this terrifying flow once, and it was after I did something very terrible. The only people who witnessed this hitting-bottom behavior were the two adults I live with, and only one of them should have seen it, if I had my druthers.
Sample Lyric: "I'm trying to fit it all inside. I'm trying to open my mouth wide. I'm trying not to choke inside. I am a good boy and I will swallow it all."
Track 4 - "The Hand That Feeds" - Struggling against any commonly-held belief that seems quite unbelievable when scrutinized, but is not meant to be scrutinized. Think McCarthyism (where there never really was a problem), or Post-9/11 Terrorist Scare (where there never really was a problem). Superficially, it is about struggling against religion, but really, it is the same concept.
Sample Lyric: "So naïve to keep holding on to what I want to believe and I can see, but I keep holding on and on and on and on."
Track 5 - "Love Is Not Enough" - The dork in me must point out that the initial letters in the title spell the word LINE, but this has nothing to do with anything. This song is about being betrayed, or at least feeling betrayed because you attributed affection to someone or something that was not reciprocated, because you were fooling yourself. In my life, I felt this for about 3 years before I decided to take control of my own situation, make sure that what I thought was true really was true, and then wait. I had to wait for a further year, but it was a year much better spent looking toward the future than feeling angry and resentful towards a person who did not deserve it.
Sample Lyric: "It hides in the dark like the withering vein. We didn't give it a mouth, so it cannot complain."
Track 6 - "Every Day Is Exactly The Same" - Everyone feels this sentiment. This is a song about addiction, which is something we will get to later, but to me, it is more about feeling unappreciated. Also, there is a bit about feeling like others are waiting for you to make a mistake or deviate from the norm, so that they can pounce upon the opportunity to belittle you.
Sample Lyric: "I think I used to have a voice, now I never make a sound. I just do what I've been told. I really don't want them to come around."
Track 7 - "With Teeth" - Being in an abusive or predatory relationship. I have no personal experience of this, but know of many who do or did. Everyone does, and we all feel for those people and wish we could help with their hopelessness and helplessness. As Stephen King says in the notes for his short story All You Love Will Be Carried Away, may we all say a prayer for the Alfie Zimmers of the world.
Sample Lyric: "I can not go through this again... This time I'm not coming back."
Track 8 - "Only" - Realizing that the problem is not YOU, it is others. It is about how you are always pitted against your friends or family, usually by people who mean well but do not seem to understand that their forced competition is harmful to the relationship dynamic of all involved. You find this in every workplace, every classroom, every family, and every psyche. Even if "winning" is not important to you (or if you try to convince yourself of that), the regard of others IS important to you, even on a limited scale. Everyone wants others to notice when they do well. And therefore, the most important person in everyone's life is oneself.
Sample Lyric: "Yes, I am alone, but then again, I always was as far back as I can tell. I think maybe it's because... Because you were never really real to begin with. I just made you up to hurt myself. And it worked."
Track 9 - "Getting Smaller" - Losing your importance, or being afraid of losing your importance. People are social beings, no matter what the emo-goth phase we all go through convinces us. We are defined by our interactions, and when interaction goes away, we become irrelevant. That is terrifying, and we all feel that we must stay somewhere on the radar. Otherwise, we become the weird homeless guy who lives in the park and talks to squirrels. We don't really need to achieve anything enormous, we just need to be needed.
Sample Lyric: "And now I can't tell the difference, or know what to feel, between what I've been trying so hard to see and what appears to be real."
Track 10 - "Sunspots" - This is a song about addiction. In my case, being addicted to a person. No matter, any addiction will always eventually overwhelm your common sense. Whether you are addicted to a person, a drug, or an action, it is always becomes helpless and you are unable to explain the appeal. Sometimes it goes good (as in my case), most of the times you hear about, it goes bad. This song then, to me, is a song about the good side of addiction.
Sample Lyric: "My life, it seems, has taken a turn. Why in the name of God would I ever want to return?"
Track 11 - "The Line Begins To Blur" - Apathy to the outside world. But more to the point, what I used to believe is changing or being changed by circumstance, and I do not really care or mind. This sounds positive, but isn't really positive at all. Why couldn't things have just been the way I thought they were? Even though the way they have become is ok and acceptable... dammit.
Sample Lyric: "As I lie here and stare, the fabric starts to tear. It's far beyond repair and I don't really care. As far as I have gone, I knew what side I'm on, but now I'm not so sure."
Track 12 - "Beside You In Time" - Paired with The Line Begins To Blur, this continues the theme of 'perhaps I have it wrong.' Unfortunately, it takes a very long time for people to realize that they are wrong, for good or bad; whether proven or not. Belief is deeper than the blackest sea.
Sample Lyric: "Sometimes on the side I hear a sound. Places parallel; I know it's you. Feel the little pieces bleeding through. This goes on. And on. And on. And on."
Track 13 - "Right Where It Belongs" This song still sometimes makes me cry. It is about being able to see things for how they really are. Caring enough to wonder about dark things and finding out that the truth is much more bright and uplifting. Things could always be better, but not because things are bad now. Very recently, I had to examine things inside of myself and see exactly how bad things could get before I could not stand the situation. How much could I do to make someone else happy, even at the expense of my own extreme unhappiness? But as it turns out, none of it is necessary, and my own pain was only caused by things buried in the past that I brought back to life myself. Seeing the entire forest instead of the trees allowed me to notice that there was no change for the worst (even a little bit) and the past is still the past. Everyone's own worst enemy is themselves, and the greatest thing you can conquer are fallacies that you created yourself. If things seem like they are headed the wrong way, perhaps you are completely wrong in your assessment and things never were bad in the first place.
Sample Lyric: "What if all the world you think you know is an elaborate dream? And if you look at your reflection, is that all you want it to be? What if you could look right through the cracks? Would you find yourself - find yourself afraid to see?"
So there you go. My soul is bared. My favorite album revealed. If you would like more information on these songs, or in some cases what Trent actually meant the song to be about, see ninwiki.com/withteeth.
