It was one of the most perfect pairings of music with film I had seen in a while. A man and woman from their perch on a skyscraper watching the buildings fall down amongst them, their gilded corporate cage crashing down and liberating them from the oppressive expectations of a society that they both rejected. What I remember most though was the music, the piercing guttural cry over soft guitar finally punctured by the strong drums-an explosion of sound to mirror the explosion seen on screen. The rush of anarchy that causes them to look at each other wondering "What's next?"
When I think about a perfect song, the song that completely encapsulates everything I have been thinking, feeling, wanting the past couple of years- "Where is My Mind" by The Pixies takes the cake.
"Try this trick and spin it"-if you look at the lyrics realistically, "Where is My Mind" is about a hallucinatory drug trip. Yet in my opinion, the nonsensical lyrics only add to the liberating power of the song. The song refuses characterization or prettiness-it doesn't rhyme or follow typical narrative structure. It just exists, disorienting and twisting and turning around itself which interestingly somewhat accomplishes the similar effect of drug trip.
The song is just brimming with tension and release. The softness of the "ooohhh" countered with the juxtaposing base guitar...the pregnant pauses between the first hit of the drum. The rush that I feel when the hesitation relents into the pounding drum and guitar, to me that's what music...what life is supposed to make you feel. It makes you pause, makes you focus on the present. The release the music brings is mainly the release of the problems of the past and the worries for the future. When you find a song that allows you to feel like that, it's one of the few times that you are ever truly free. You are the music while the music lasts so to speak.
Freud wrote at length about this concept called the death instinct-basically his thought was that all living matter desired to return to a nonliving state. Although this could be somewhat of an explanation for human depression and addiction to destructive substances like drugs and alcohol, I propose a counter theory. Human beings desire such substances and activities like drugs, sex, and rock and roll because it compels you to live in the moment. When you're high or having sex or listening to an intense song you are entirely there, entirely existing in the present. I can't stop listening to this song because it gives me that little moment, the moment when any pressures or worries crash and burn like the buildings in "Fight Club". My state of existence is singing along with crazy Frank Black and pounding along with the irrespressible drums.
Way in the water see it swimming...
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