Final Songs: The Overload

A gentle collapsing/The removal of the insides
Album:Remain in Light by Talking Heads

A terrible signal
Too weak to even recognize
A gentle collapsing
The removal of the insides

I'm touched by your pleas
I value these moments
We're order than we realize
...in someone's eyes

A frequent returning
And leaving unnoticed
A condition of mercy
A change in the weather

A view to remember
The center is missing
They question how the future lies
...in someone's eyes
The gentle collapsing
Of every surface
We travel on the quiet road
...the overload

So I'd been thinking a couple of weeks about where next to go with "Final Songs", what would be a good song to sink my teeth into. It occurred to me that I hadn't done anything with Talking Heads. Then earlier today I was listening to one of Charlie Lewis' archived shows on WFMU and this song played. My fate was sealed.

Remain in Light represents the culmination of the band's working partnership with Brian Eno, whom we've covered here before and - who knows? - may do so again. Having produced their previous two albums (More Songs About Buildings and Food, Fear of Music) he'd show that he got them in a way that most producers wouldn't. Of course even among the four of them Talking Heads were a volatile set of personalities, so it's not too surprising that the relationship fell apart at some point. What is surprising is that the acrimony that was building didn't really show up on vinyl.

Which isn't to say that there's no tension in the music. The rhythms and textures from other parts of the world work their way in aggressively. Listening to this music can feel like being flown in the middle of the night to what your hosts say is another country but that you suspect is another planet.

It's also a political disc, although not in an obvious, didactic way. David Byrne starts off the album shouting as a paranoid "government man" (on "Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On") and another song ("Listening Wind") takes at least an empathetic look at an African terrorist trying to drive Western colonialists out of his land.

On the album's last song, "The Overload", the alien approach to music continues, but in a different way. This does not sound like the funk and African/Caribbean pop that's informed so much of the album up to this point. What does it sound like? Well, your mind dissolving for starters. The story most often told is that Byrne wrote the song after hearing about Manchester postpunk band Joy Division. That's right, hearing about them, but not having actually heard any of their music. The result isn't actually that far off from the real thing, but it does give the band room to improvise, being themselves but in a new role. Byrne doesn't really sound anything like Ian Curtis here. What he does sound is tired and lost.

And there seems to be a political aspect to this song as well. "I'm touched by your pleas. I value these moments." These two lines contain a disturbing juxtaposition. Someone is pleading with him, for mercy, one guesses. ("A condition of mercy." One wonders what condition he's demanding.) Yet he waxes sentimental about valuing the moment. It's the kind of romanticizing that one can apply to one's worst acts after the fact, rendering them more palatable.

So is "The Overload" about torture? It certainly does fit with the title, as torture victims are "overloaded" with pain and fear. It would be reductive, I think, to say it's about that and only that. But the song does intertwine certain signifiers of the act with a vibe that's meditative and, in its dark way, kind of peaceful.

Talking Heads go goth? Oh, it's way more disturbing than that.

Paws and reflect

The Butterfly from Valerie Bobadilla on Vimeo.

Regardless of where you are, what you're doing, what time of day it is, I trust that this very short film will bring something to your day. The animator says it's in memory of her own cat. Well, how could it not be?

Coming attractions

Hm. This is one of those nights where I'm getting a late start, so I can't really do a substantive post. Happens sometimes.

Because I haven't done a Final Songs in a little over a week (I think) that doesn't mean I've stopped doing them. I'm weighing what the next one will be. Hopefully in the next few days.

Other than that, I'll just be improvising, man.

Holo

Okay, Foxx I can kind of see. He was known for his jokes and stories. Given the available options I'd prefer to listen to the jokes on old Redd Foxx records/YouTube clips than go spend an arm and a leg on the temporary illusion that he's still alive, but it's your night out.

Andy Kaufman, though? His act was irreproducible by definition. The point of his comedy wasn't the jokes he told, because he didn't really tell any. It wasn't even stunts like doing his laundry on stage, at least not in themselves. It was that his mind was always working, and you never knew what it would come up with. Not really something you can get from what is essentially a 3D video recording.

My one hope is that he might have ordered all this as a prank thirty odd years ago. I don't know, maybe he was reading a lot of William Gibson.

Ruffled

I read an article about this band in the arts section of one of the free local interest magazines you see lying around here and there. Truth to tell whatever curiosity the story aroused in me was of the very idle kind. And yet, it was enough for me to do some websurfing looking for their music. I found a few songs that really wowed me. And not just the fact that one member looks like a scaled-down Dwayne Johnson.

This is sort of an atypical performance in that it's 75% a capella* but it captures a lot of their charm.

* Yeah, I know, either you're pregnant or your not.

Something in the air

So today after work I was walking from my workplace to the bus stop. I walk through this spot on the sidewalk, slightly shaded. Feel something, well, lot's of little somethings, hitting my face and hair. Is this water? No, it's not wet. Dust or dirt? Not quite.

No, Virginia, what's spraying me is a bunch of flies. Tiny flies, probably just hatched. The thing is, though, they're persistent. They follow you. For many minutes after that I have to scratch my head and pat down my clothes to make sure they're not still on me. The feeling of discomfort didn't completely go away for over an hour, after I'd also run my head under the tap at home. So next time I'm not crossing the street until I'm well past that house.

But it makes me wonder. What are the people on that property doing that there's a huge cloud of young flies hovering over the sidewalk in front? Should I be searching the missing persons reports?

Take off, you hoser

First the bad news. In the recent Swiss elections, many seats were gained by a party that thought these were the right images to represent their cause.

Gee, guys, what are you trying to say? Presenting animals of a certain color as ipso facto evil seems like it could have broader implications, but I can't put my finger on it.

The good news, aside from me not living anywhere near Switzerland right now, is that Stephen Harper got his ass booted out of Ottawa. The list of Tea Party wet dreams his government supported and sometimes managed to pass is a long one.I'm sure it made some outside observers conclude that Canada is just a huge, cold Arizona without Mexicans. Not so. Harper and the right wing of the Tories were very good at rigging the system.

As to Justin Trudeau, who knows? I know my grandmother couldn't stand his dad, which on a personal level I could sort of see. The future's uncertain. For now I'll settle for evildoers being punished, or at least shushed.