Arrived in Detroit mid-morning on Monday, after stopping to sleep for an hour or two along the road from Pittsburgh. Met Sharon outside the Fox Theater and headed down Woodward Avenue in search of Coney Dogs (Lafayette, not American) and someplace with free wi-fi. For a change, we weren't lining up hours early for Jack's show that night because the seats we'd paid a bundle for in the pit were assigned, not general admission. Hah. Like assigned seats in the third row, on the wrong side of the theater no less, would keep us away from the edge of the stage.
And what a show it was. When the first crashing notes struck as a sliver of light became apparent between the pale blue velvet curtains, Sharon and I bolted from our row and slammed ourselves up against the front of the stage directly in front of Jack and his silver lamé pants. Obviously excited to be playing not only in his hometown but also his first show at the Fox Theater, he started the show at a frenetic pace. But within a few songs, it became apparent he was pissed off at the number of people in the audience texting or just standing like zombies. Eleanor later showed me a photo of a girl next to her who'd passed out in her chair. The girl next to me at the stage and the people with her stood stock still through the whole show, not even applauding, as if they were afraid the slightest motion would muss their oh-so-pretty hair or clothes. I was tempted to call an undertaker to measure the girl for a coffin, she was so dead. If Jack was seeing even more of that from the stage, no wonder he was so angry. And was he ever angry. When the curtain was swept shut after a short set, it almost seemed as if he might not come back.
But he did, with the curtains being drawn back for another brief set that began with a frenetic Fell In Love With a Girl and ended with Jack shushing the crowd halfway through Hardest Button to Button and sarcastically telling us we were too loud before maniacally shrieking the last verse of the song at the top of his lungs and having the curtains swept shut again as the band continued to play.
At this point we were stunned. To end the show like that, with none of his usual encore/set closers, with that insane ending to the song... But no, he came slamming back out for a third set that had a roller-coaster up-and-down pace and a relentless emotional intensity even for the softer songs. At one point, I can't recall which song, he apparently reached out to grab a cymbal just as drummer Daru Jones brought a stick down on his hand. At the end of the song, he stood at his amps with his back to the audience, struggling to remove the ring he was wearing on that hand. He finally wrenched it off and spun around yelling "Shit!!", then grabbed a glass of what appeared to be whiskey and smashed it against one of his amps. Through all of this raging craziness, I was right there with him, pissed off at the audience on his behalf, laughing empathetically at his sarcastic comments, choked up and near tears when he chose to express anguish. His performance of You've Got Her In Your Pocket is a perfect example of the mania of this show, beginning with Jack making a face and mimicking the people in the audience playing with their phones before muttering "Text, motherfuckers, text!" as he walked toward the mic (which didn't make it through the speakers but that I heard clearly), and then finishing the song with heart-breaking poignancy. Sharon and I were both in tears by the end of it.
The show finally really did end three songs later with Goodnight Irene, during which I put my arm around Sharon's shoulder and she reached up to hold my hand as we swayed back and forth. When Jack stepped to the front of the stage right above us to encourage the audience to sing along with the last chorus, I couldn't give him what he wanted. I mouthed the words, but kept my voice silent so I could try to hear him un-mic'd, as I had in Omaha, Nebraska two years ago.
We all walked out of the astoundingly gorgeous theater afterward and I sat on a curb along the street trying to take notes about the show with shaking hands. I hate seeing Jack frustrated and angry in that fashion, the same way I would sympathetically not want to see anyone feeling that way. But at the same time, I love seeing him in that state because he takes those terrible emotions and uses them like lighter fluid, fanning his own fire in order to try to build one in the crowd. As I was processing what'd just happened, I couldn't help but wonder what we were in store for two nights later, when he would be playing again at the Detroit Masonic Temple. The only thing I felt I could be sure of was that it would be different. And sure enough, it was.
August 1, 2014
Confessions of a Jack White junkie, part 1: Pittsburgh to Detroit
The road from Pittsburgh was all rain, shale rock, arctic bog, Queen Anne's lace, and herons on the wing. I was following Jack White, even though he was probably either still in Pittsburgh or on the road behind me because I'd left almost immediately after the show there.
Road-trips are, of course, a great time to think things out, either obsessively or with a greater clarity than usual, depending on one's frame of mind. Thinking about the show last night in Pittsburgh led to exploring my relationship with Jack and his music in a way that's been creeping around in my mind, noticed but willfully ignored until it surged forward along this drive.
My relationship with him has recently become a complicated one. His current tour began at the end of May, a week and a half before his new album Lazaretto was released. The first show was in Tulsa, the "campfire in the desert of [his] mind", site of one of the most wonderful of his shows I've experienced yet (to give that statement some context, last night in Pittsburgh was show number 22 1/4 in just over four years). I had sworn after seeing him in Tulsa on his last tour that, come hell or high water, I would be there again the next time he was. So what did he and his business managers go and do? They scheduled this Tulsa show on a day when I was going to be stuck in Las Vegas on the annual business trip from Hell, a trip there was no way in Hell my boss would let me take a day away from. From the night of that show, when I cried a little bit before falling off to sleep in Las Vegas, my relationship with Jack changed. For the first time, I felt an aching sadness from the things he did.
And then Lazaretto was released. I've already written in detail about how that record affected me, how certain songs hit way too close to home even as my response to the album confused me by swinging back and forth over the course of a couple of days. Through all of that, I was hearing from friends who were going to the shows that I was missing because of work and my guts began to tie up in knots. With the first of my own shows not coming up until the end of July, the excitement I've felt in the past over seeing Jack was replaced by anxiety and a terribly ugly jealousy of my friends. My friend Sam was at a show during which he sat down on the edge of the stage and then rolled off into the crowd, letting people reach out to support him and grab at his hair and she was one of the many who made physical contact with him. Two others, Sharon and Eleanor, began a run of shows in mid-July that had them right up at the front of the stage for several nights in a row, holding up signs for Jack and having him come over and acknowledge them as he was playing. Normally I try to be rational about that sort of experience-- What does it really mean when someone like Jack acknowledges your existence? Nothing, really, because you exist as a fully developed human being whether he is aware of you or not. But at other times I can't deny the thrill that comes from even the most brief interaction with him, whether it's two sentences of conversation in the Vault chatroom or two seconds of eye contact and, if you're lucky, a wink from him from the stage. So with my emotions already in upheaval over missing shows and from my response to the album, I found myself not wanting to hear about their experiences lest I turn bitter and begin making diminishing comments about them. I wanted to be happy and excited for these friends, but kept getting caught up in my own self-centered and self-pitying concerns and that in turn made me loathe myself, which led to more self-pity. It turned into a pretty ridiculous cycle. At a time when I should have been feeling euphoric anticipation, I instead felt like I wanted to throw up and then crawl into a hole.
Then my own turn finally came. I met up with Sam, Sharon, Eleanor, and our friend Helen in Pittsburgh for Jack's first show there in several years. We camped out for hours at the venue so that we'd be first in line, sitting through rain, chilly wind, and then swampy heat and a nerve-wracking line experience in order to get our chosen spots at the front of the stage.
My memories of the show itself have already become indistinct, but I very vividly recall my reaction to it. It started out as usual, with an explosion of sound and motion that swept me up immediately. And yet, as it progressed I started to feel as if I were just going through the motions. I felt a growing disconnection to what was happening on the stage. When Jack slowed the pace of the show for the lovely acoustic You've Got Her In Your Pocket, all the emotional upheaval that had been building the last several weeks suddenly came to a head and I began to cry. When he followed that one up with Alone In My Home, the song on Lazaretto that'd been a punch to my heart, I had to put my head down on the rail and just shut everything out for a moment.
I was almost completely still and insular for the next handful of songs. When the pale blue velvet curtains were pulled shut after the first set, I almost didn't even applaud and, again, kept having to put my head down to hide the fact that I was crying. But when the curtains flew open again to a fresh explosion of Blue Orchid, something snapped and it was as if all the confusion and upheaval I'd experienced leading up to and during this show was drop-kicked away over the mountains surrounding Pittsburgh. I don't know what happened, but I suddenly connected with every song that followed, especially a letter-perfect and incendiary Black Bat Licorice, exactly as I should have, giving myself over with complete abandon. When the skies began to pour down just as he sang of not being afraid of standing out in the rain at the beginning of Would You Fight For My Love?, it was a joyous thing, instead of something I'd been wishing for to camouflage my tears.
So here's what I thought about after the show on the drive that night from Pittsburgh to Detroit-- I've not had many relationships in my almost half a century of life. Men have not gravitated towards me, and the few who have were mis-matched, people that I should have had brief flings with and then moved on from. But they were the only ones so I held onto what little I got from them, believing at the time that it was worthwhile and that I had to make the most of it. At this particular period in my life, what I choose to make the most out of is what I get from Jack and his music, in lieu of other relationships that I don't seem destined to have. I've seen other women joke on the internet about him being their "imaginary boyfriend" (Juliette Lewis among them) and I have to admit that what he does in a way does fulfill that sort of role. His music, watching him perform, reading and hearing the things he talks about in interviews, all summon up emotions that some of us out there wish we could get from the men around us but can't, either because the men aren't Jack or because they just don't exist at all. (Though the recent essay Jack My Heart, by William Giraldi in American Oxford, certainly indicates that men can also have this sort of relationship with Jack White) Some people might read that and think that it's a sad thing, but it's just what is. Life is a combination of circumstances and the choices we make. We can control our choices, but we have limited control, if any at all, over circumstance so we have to get the most out of the situations we find ourselves in. So I, and others, make the most out of the intellectual and emotional stimulation that we get from Jack's music and ideas.
So my recent emotions in regards to him have ranged from that aching sadness to intensely ugly, wanting-to-scratch-eyes-out jealousy, bemusement, worry and anxiety, even a little bit of alarm. Also, though, sometimes at the forefront and sometimes as an under-current to the ugliness and anxiety, there's still been the euphoria, the adoration, and the infatuation. I've joked so many times about being a junkie for him and his music, addicted to the thrill of him, but it suddenly doesn't feel like a joke anymore. It's real. And yet I wouldn't give it up for anything right now, it's become too fulfilling. So I'm just gonna stay strapped into this roller-coaster ride for now, thank you very much, it's nowhere near the end and I have to see where it leads. You can be sad for me if you want, I'm too busy to care.
Road-trips are, of course, a great time to think things out, either obsessively or with a greater clarity than usual, depending on one's frame of mind. Thinking about the show last night in Pittsburgh led to exploring my relationship with Jack and his music in a way that's been creeping around in my mind, noticed but willfully ignored until it surged forward along this drive.
My relationship with him has recently become a complicated one. His current tour began at the end of May, a week and a half before his new album Lazaretto was released. The first show was in Tulsa, the "campfire in the desert of [his] mind", site of one of the most wonderful of his shows I've experienced yet (to give that statement some context, last night in Pittsburgh was show number 22 1/4 in just over four years). I had sworn after seeing him in Tulsa on his last tour that, come hell or high water, I would be there again the next time he was. So what did he and his business managers go and do? They scheduled this Tulsa show on a day when I was going to be stuck in Las Vegas on the annual business trip from Hell, a trip there was no way in Hell my boss would let me take a day away from. From the night of that show, when I cried a little bit before falling off to sleep in Las Vegas, my relationship with Jack changed. For the first time, I felt an aching sadness from the things he did.
And then Lazaretto was released. I've already written in detail about how that record affected me, how certain songs hit way too close to home even as my response to the album confused me by swinging back and forth over the course of a couple of days. Through all of that, I was hearing from friends who were going to the shows that I was missing because of work and my guts began to tie up in knots. With the first of my own shows not coming up until the end of July, the excitement I've felt in the past over seeing Jack was replaced by anxiety and a terribly ugly jealousy of my friends. My friend Sam was at a show during which he sat down on the edge of the stage and then rolled off into the crowd, letting people reach out to support him and grab at his hair and she was one of the many who made physical contact with him. Two others, Sharon and Eleanor, began a run of shows in mid-July that had them right up at the front of the stage for several nights in a row, holding up signs for Jack and having him come over and acknowledge them as he was playing. Normally I try to be rational about that sort of experience-- What does it really mean when someone like Jack acknowledges your existence? Nothing, really, because you exist as a fully developed human being whether he is aware of you or not. But at other times I can't deny the thrill that comes from even the most brief interaction with him, whether it's two sentences of conversation in the Vault chatroom or two seconds of eye contact and, if you're lucky, a wink from him from the stage. So with my emotions already in upheaval over missing shows and from my response to the album, I found myself not wanting to hear about their experiences lest I turn bitter and begin making diminishing comments about them. I wanted to be happy and excited for these friends, but kept getting caught up in my own self-centered and self-pitying concerns and that in turn made me loathe myself, which led to more self-pity. It turned into a pretty ridiculous cycle. At a time when I should have been feeling euphoric anticipation, I instead felt like I wanted to throw up and then crawl into a hole.
Then my own turn finally came. I met up with Sam, Sharon, Eleanor, and our friend Helen in Pittsburgh for Jack's first show there in several years. We camped out for hours at the venue so that we'd be first in line, sitting through rain, chilly wind, and then swampy heat and a nerve-wracking line experience in order to get our chosen spots at the front of the stage.
My memories of the show itself have already become indistinct, but I very vividly recall my reaction to it. It started out as usual, with an explosion of sound and motion that swept me up immediately. And yet, as it progressed I started to feel as if I were just going through the motions. I felt a growing disconnection to what was happening on the stage. When Jack slowed the pace of the show for the lovely acoustic You've Got Her In Your Pocket, all the emotional upheaval that had been building the last several weeks suddenly came to a head and I began to cry. When he followed that one up with Alone In My Home, the song on Lazaretto that'd been a punch to my heart, I had to put my head down on the rail and just shut everything out for a moment.
I was almost completely still and insular for the next handful of songs. When the pale blue velvet curtains were pulled shut after the first set, I almost didn't even applaud and, again, kept having to put my head down to hide the fact that I was crying. But when the curtains flew open again to a fresh explosion of Blue Orchid, something snapped and it was as if all the confusion and upheaval I'd experienced leading up to and during this show was drop-kicked away over the mountains surrounding Pittsburgh. I don't know what happened, but I suddenly connected with every song that followed, especially a letter-perfect and incendiary Black Bat Licorice, exactly as I should have, giving myself over with complete abandon. When the skies began to pour down just as he sang of not being afraid of standing out in the rain at the beginning of Would You Fight For My Love?, it was a joyous thing, instead of something I'd been wishing for to camouflage my tears.
So here's what I thought about after the show on the drive that night from Pittsburgh to Detroit-- I've not had many relationships in my almost half a century of life. Men have not gravitated towards me, and the few who have were mis-matched, people that I should have had brief flings with and then moved on from. But they were the only ones so I held onto what little I got from them, believing at the time that it was worthwhile and that I had to make the most of it. At this particular period in my life, what I choose to make the most out of is what I get from Jack and his music, in lieu of other relationships that I don't seem destined to have. I've seen other women joke on the internet about him being their "imaginary boyfriend" (Juliette Lewis among them) and I have to admit that what he does in a way does fulfill that sort of role. His music, watching him perform, reading and hearing the things he talks about in interviews, all summon up emotions that some of us out there wish we could get from the men around us but can't, either because the men aren't Jack or because they just don't exist at all. (Though the recent essay Jack My Heart, by William Giraldi in American Oxford, certainly indicates that men can also have this sort of relationship with Jack White) Some people might read that and think that it's a sad thing, but it's just what is. Life is a combination of circumstances and the choices we make. We can control our choices, but we have limited control, if any at all, over circumstance so we have to get the most out of the situations we find ourselves in. So I, and others, make the most out of the intellectual and emotional stimulation that we get from Jack's music and ideas.
So my recent emotions in regards to him have ranged from that aching sadness to intensely ugly, wanting-to-scratch-eyes-out jealousy, bemusement, worry and anxiety, even a little bit of alarm. Also, though, sometimes at the forefront and sometimes as an under-current to the ugliness and anxiety, there's still been the euphoria, the adoration, and the infatuation. I've joked so many times about being a junkie for him and his music, addicted to the thrill of him, but it suddenly doesn't feel like a joke anymore. It's real. And yet I wouldn't give it up for anything right now, it's become too fulfilling. So I'm just gonna stay strapped into this roller-coaster ride for now, thank you very much, it's nowhere near the end and I have to see where it leads. You can be sad for me if you want, I'm too busy to care.
Confessions of a Jack White junkie: Introduction
In all the time I've had this blog, I've only ever had one negative comment, to wit:
Jesus Christ. More stupid ramblings of a freakish Jack White fangirl. Will you ever shut the fuck up about Jack fucking White? Do you ever listen, watch, think, say, or do anything that can't be tied to Jack fucking White in some fucking way? Jack White. Jack White. Jack White. Jack White. Jack White. Jack White. Jack White. Jack White. Jack White. Jack White. Geeshie Wiley? Jack White! Keith Richards? Jack White! Charlie Chan? Jack White! We get it: you're fucking obsessed! You seem to think that verbosity and mind-numbing analysis of every little mundane detail somehow separates you from the other fangirls. Well, it doesn't. You're a fucking drone. Shut the fuck up already. Thanks.
At the time, I was dismissive of it because I realize that person's issue is really with themselves, not with my writing. But right now, what I'd like to say to that person is this-- Fuck you. I write about Jack White because discovering his music four years ago caused a sea-change in my life. Foremost, it's made me come to experience music in a completely different way. My musical choices have become like a vast solar system, with his music as the Sun and everything else I listen to now a collection of planets, moons, asteroids, and satellites radiating out from him. Some are related to him directly, some tangentially, and others seemingly not at all but discovered through connections to him. The way I listen to music has also evolved and become enriched, which I've written about before, because he compels me to pay more attention to what I hear, to learn about it and understand it. Surprisingly, this more cerebral approach has caused me to feel the music I listen to more profoundly. And, possibly most importantly, because of him I have a wider circle of friends right now than I've ever had in my life, people I've met through social networking sites dedicated to him, and then spent hours and hours in lines and at the front of the stage with. People with whom I've shared some deeply emotional experiences.
Because of all this, I write about Jack White. If that or my verbosity annoy you, my anonymous troll commenter, then fucking stop reading my fucking blog and fucking go find yourself a different fucking corner of the internet in which to spew your fucking ire. Because I'm going to continue writing about Jack fucking White.
For anyone who's still interested, stick around. Jack's currently on tour and the roller-coaster ride is about to begin.
Part 1: Stage AE, Pittsburgh PA
Part 2: Fox Theater, Detroit MI
Part III: Masonic Temple, Detroit MI
Part 4: Bill Graham Auditorium, San Francisco CA
Part 5: Paramount Theater, Seattle WA
Part 6: Farm Aid, Columbia MD, and Cleveland OH
Part 7: Fenway Park, Boston MA
Part 8: The Fillmore, Miami Beach FL
Part 9: Austin Music Hall, Austin TX
Part 10: Bridgestone Arena, Nashville TN
Part 11: Madison Square Garden, NY
Part 12: Schottenstein Center, Columbus OH
Part 13: Fargo Theater acoustic show, Fargo ND
July 17, 2014
Crows, pistachios, and banjos
Went for a bike ride this morning. A short ride due to time constraints, along the C&O closer to the city than I normally ride, beginning at mile 23 and heading down to Great Falls, just 15 miles from Georgetown. Pulled up for a break at Great Falls under a shady tree next to a paddock of sorts built for the mules that pull canal boats for tourists on the weekends-- Just a small area bound by a wooden fence on three sides with a gate enclosing the fourth, with a bench next to it for the mule handlers. Nice spot on a weekday to sit and eat pistachios and watch geese and tourists wandering along the canal between the parking lot and the tavern-turned-museum & visitors center.
After a while, I noticed a lone crow swooping and floating back and forth over both tourists and geese. It turned and headed in my direction and I figured it'd either fly past towards the river behind me or up into the tree above me. Instead, it came straight at me, apparently only realizing about five feet away that I was there, at which point it suddenly swerved up and over me. I swung around on the bench expecting to see it disappear into the trees along the river but, nope, there it was, perched on the gate of the mule paddock behind me. It was obviously fairly well acclimated to people and probably a heck of a thief and beggar, judging from the way it sat and stared and softly squawked at me. So I unshelled a pistachio and quietly reached up from the bench to set it on top of the fencepost at the corner of the paddock. The crow sat there looking from me to the fencepost and muttering to itself for about half a minute, then walked tentatively along the railing, hopped up to the post, and snatched the nut. A quick swoop back to its spot on the railing. It tried to swallow the pistachio, but apparently decided it was too big, so it tucked it between its feet and pecked out little bits to nibble on until it was small enough to swallow the rest.
I unshelled another and placed it on top of the fencepost. This time the hesitation and squawky muttering lasted longer, so I stood up and, quietly asking the crow if it didn't like the salt'n'pepper flavor of the nuts, moved the pistachio to another fencepost along the middle of the rail farther away from the bench. After a few moments, it smoothly swooped to the opposite end of the railing and tentatively walked its way up to the middle fencepost and hopped up. It picked up the nut and held it for a moment, then set it back down and hopped down from the fence to the ground inside the paddock, where it found another nut I'd apparently accidentally tossed over my shoulder with empty shells. The crow took a few nibbles and then began picking through the grass for other fare. When nothing else turned up, it opened its wings and took off, this time heading off over the river, then swerving back past the paddock and across the canal to perch on the chimney of the old tavern/visitors center. Definitely had to have been that salt'n'pepper flavor that turned it off from the pistachios. Made me wish I'd just gotten plain ones.
Ended up the day at the Baltimore Museum of Industry to see Dom Flemons take part in "Banjos on the Waterfront", an outdoor concert in conjunction with their exhibit "Making Music: The Banjo in Baltimore and Beyond". I've driven past the BMI many times, even ridden my bike past, but never stopped in. Definitely need to go back again when the full museum is open-- The banjo exhibit was small but terrific and the few industrial displays I could see beyond it looked really fascinating. And I have to thank my friends at Wax-O-Holics for turning me onto Dom. Formerly of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, the man's a great musician and a very engaging performer. See for yourself--
And ain't this somethin', Dom with Pokey LaFarge--
After a while, I noticed a lone crow swooping and floating back and forth over both tourists and geese. It turned and headed in my direction and I figured it'd either fly past towards the river behind me or up into the tree above me. Instead, it came straight at me, apparently only realizing about five feet away that I was there, at which point it suddenly swerved up and over me. I swung around on the bench expecting to see it disappear into the trees along the river but, nope, there it was, perched on the gate of the mule paddock behind me. It was obviously fairly well acclimated to people and probably a heck of a thief and beggar, judging from the way it sat and stared and softly squawked at me. So I unshelled a pistachio and quietly reached up from the bench to set it on top of the fencepost at the corner of the paddock. The crow sat there looking from me to the fencepost and muttering to itself for about half a minute, then walked tentatively along the railing, hopped up to the post, and snatched the nut. A quick swoop back to its spot on the railing. It tried to swallow the pistachio, but apparently decided it was too big, so it tucked it between its feet and pecked out little bits to nibble on until it was small enough to swallow the rest.
I unshelled another and placed it on top of the fencepost. This time the hesitation and squawky muttering lasted longer, so I stood up and, quietly asking the crow if it didn't like the salt'n'pepper flavor of the nuts, moved the pistachio to another fencepost along the middle of the rail farther away from the bench. After a few moments, it smoothly swooped to the opposite end of the railing and tentatively walked its way up to the middle fencepost and hopped up. It picked up the nut and held it for a moment, then set it back down and hopped down from the fence to the ground inside the paddock, where it found another nut I'd apparently accidentally tossed over my shoulder with empty shells. The crow took a few nibbles and then began picking through the grass for other fare. When nothing else turned up, it opened its wings and took off, this time heading off over the river, then swerving back past the paddock and across the canal to perch on the chimney of the old tavern/visitors center. Definitely had to have been that salt'n'pepper flavor that turned it off from the pistachios. Made me wish I'd just gotten plain ones.
Ended up the day at the Baltimore Museum of Industry to see Dom Flemons take part in "Banjos on the Waterfront", an outdoor concert in conjunction with their exhibit "Making Music: The Banjo in Baltimore and Beyond". I've driven past the BMI many times, even ridden my bike past, but never stopped in. Definitely need to go back again when the full museum is open-- The banjo exhibit was small but terrific and the few industrial displays I could see beyond it looked really fascinating. And I have to thank my friends at Wax-O-Holics for turning me onto Dom. Formerly of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, the man's a great musician and a very engaging performer. See for yourself--
And ain't this somethin', Dom with Pokey LaFarge--
June 25, 2014
Son House and Foucault on desperate passion
"Then the last type of madness: that of desperate passion. Love disappointed in its excess, and especially love deceived by the fatality of death, has no other recourse but madness. As long as there was an object, mad love was more love than madness; left to itself, it pursues itself in the void."
Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization.
June 15, 2014
Jung on concealment and repression
"As soon as man was capable of conceiving the idea of sin, he had recourse to psychic concealment-- or, to put it in analytical language, repressions arose. Anything that is concealed is a secret. The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison which alienates their possessor from the community. In small doses, this poison may actually be a priceless remedy, even an essential preliminary to the differentiation of the individual. This is so much the case that, even on a primitive level, man has felt an irresistible need to invent secrets; their possession saves him from dissolving in the unconsciousness of mere community life, and thus from a fatal psychic injury. As is well known, the many ancient mystery cults with their secret rituals served this instinct for differentiation. Even the Christian sacraments were looked upon as mysteries in the early Church, and, as in the case of baptism, were celebrated in private apartments and only referred to under a veil of allegory.
However beneficial a secret shared with several persons may be, a merely private secret has destructive effect. It resembles a burden of guilt which cuts off the unfortunate possessor from communion with his fellow-beings. Yet if we are conscious of what we conceal, the harm done is decidedly less than if we do not know what we are repressing-- or even that we have repressions at all. In the latter case we not merely keep a content consciously private, but we conceal it even from ourselves. It then splits off from consciousness as an independent complex, where it can be neither corrected nor interfered with by the conscious mind. The complex is thus an autonomous portion of the psyche which, as experience has shown, develops a peculiar fantasy-life of its own. What we call fantasy is simply spontaneous psychic activity; and it wells up whenever the repressive action of the conscious mind relaxes or ceases altogether..."
C.G. Jung, from the essay, Problems of Psychotherapy.
However beneficial a secret shared with several persons may be, a merely private secret has destructive effect. It resembles a burden of guilt which cuts off the unfortunate possessor from communion with his fellow-beings. Yet if we are conscious of what we conceal, the harm done is decidedly less than if we do not know what we are repressing-- or even that we have repressions at all. In the latter case we not merely keep a content consciously private, but we conceal it even from ourselves. It then splits off from consciousness as an independent complex, where it can be neither corrected nor interfered with by the conscious mind. The complex is thus an autonomous portion of the psyche which, as experience has shown, develops a peculiar fantasy-life of its own. What we call fantasy is simply spontaneous psychic activity; and it wells up whenever the repressive action of the conscious mind relaxes or ceases altogether..."
C.G. Jung, from the essay, Problems of Psychotherapy.
June 13, 2014
Get out of my head, Jack White. Or, how the music we love can backfire
In Madness and Civilization, Michel Foucault wrote of Renaissance-era "ships of fools", on which societies would load their madmen and send them out into the harbor to get them out of the cities and isolate them. Or to isolate the cities from them, whichever. On Lazaretto, Jack White sings of being put down in a lazaretto, those old island fortresses where the sick and disabled were quarantined. That idea of separation, of isolation, has become pertinent for me lately and been much on my mind.
I got away from writing here regularly for a while, in part because everything I wrote was beginning to sound so self-obsessed and sometimes self-pitying, to the point that it was becoming tedious even to me, much less to anyone who might've stumbled across those ramblings on the interwebs. But also because as I got deeper and deeper into Jack White's music, I became involved in the community of his fans. It began at a message board, expanded to the Third Man Records Vault and another message board, to a couple of Facebook groups, and, most importantly, to people I've met face-to-face at his shows. I still wrote about Jack's music here because there was so much in it that inspired me and that I wanted to dig into and mentally digest. But more and more, I didn't need this place to get my thoughts out, I was able to do it in all those other places and get instant feedback, have dialogues instead of these rambling monologues. I came out of isolation, at least via the written word. Physically, I'm still separate, as all of these people I relate to are spread around the U.S. and I see them rarely, whenever we gather for a show. The rest of the time, it's me on my own, until I sit down at the computer and reach out.
But lately something's been different. It's been building up gradually for a while, a feeling of disconnection, of distance, from the community I've felt such a part of, from both the internet "friends" I relate to and the real friends I've formed an emotional connection with. Is it my old pattern rearing its head, my apparent inability to have long-lasting relationships with people? What's behind that, anyway? Whatever it is, it started out early. I was always one of those kids who was off by themselves with a book or exploring in the woods. I had friends, but still spent a lot of time alone. Then an incident in 6th grade led to complete ostracism, turning me into one of those kids sitting shunned on the side of the playground. High school was no better, especially after I became one of three punk rockers in the entire school and walked a daily gauntlet of derision from the jocks and popular kids. Exposure to my parents' constant arguing didn't help, either, as it was just one more thing to block out, to build a wall against.
If you've ever read the book Cold Mountain (and I mean the book, not the film Jack White was in), you may understand when I say that I strongly identify with the main female character, Ada, who is described as "eccentric and bristly". Ada's physical isolation in Black Cove is, of course, a metaphor for her isolation from people in general, which is due in large part to how she chooses to relate to those around her. She has little patience for the accepted mores of the city culture she was raised in, and is at a loss in the completely unfamiliar realm of country society. She frequently ends up saying the wrong thing in the wrong way, often as a means to keep people at a distance either intentionally or unconsciously. As a result, there's a wall around her, built by her own hands using the bricks of other people's inability to comprehend her. To say that I understand that alienation would be an understatement, despite the friendships I've formed over the last few years.
For the past couple weeks, that feeling's been intensely strong. Part of it is envy of those friends whose schedules have allowed them to attend recent shows on Jack's current tour for the new album. These are people I genuinely like and have enjoyed spending time with, but I find myself not wanting to hear from them because the few details I've heard of these shows make me bitterly resentful that I've not been there. It's an ugly reaction, one that makes me loathe myself, and that makes me retreat even further from these people because I don't want to expose them to my ugliness. But the last few days, it's become even worse. Without any rational clue why, I've been peevish, angry, melancholy-- lashing out, crying while driving in the car, having arguments with people in my head that I wouldn't allow myself to have anywhere else, stuck in isolation inside my own brain instead of focused outward. Then it dawned on me-- Part of it is this record, Lazaretto. This depressed and angry mood's been with me ever since the night I received it last week, from the moment I read The Admitting of Patience, a play in one act at the beginning of the book that accompanied the album:
THE ADMITTING OF PATIENCE
(one act)
PERSON ONE
(Male or Female)
I fantasize about hospital beds,
jail, work camps, the army.
I thought of branding myself,
tattooing a message to myself
With a symbol that I can't be
at peace with anyone.
A raft, A boy in the water. I'm hurt,
but not afraid of physical pain.
PERSON TWO
(M or F)
I don't feel very good about myself.
People always leave me.
Nobody can stand me for very long.
I wish I could cut my tongue out,
or take out the part of my brain
that has opinions. Or cares.
I wish I could be simple.
Be quiet, introverted, or shy.
I'm half way in between a wallflower
at a party and elvis presley.
People love one or the other.
In between is no place to be.
PERSON THREE
I see.
The impact of that practically brought me to my knees. It did bring me to tears, and I don't mean just welling up in my eyes. I mean shoulder-shaking sobs. Good lord above, talk about identifying with something someone's expressed. And then to put on the record and discover the song Alone In My Home, in which he sings
These stones
That are thrown against my bones
Break through
But they hurt less as time goes on
And alone
I build my own home
To be sure
That nobody can touch me now
That's followed immediately by That Black Bat Licorice, with its refrain of
Don't you want to lose the
Part of the brain that has opinions?
To not even know what you are doing?
Or care about yourself or
Your species in the billions?
Listening to these two songs feels as if he's been in my own head, pulled out my own thoughts and feelings and experiences, all those incidents of feeling the wrong thing, thinking the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing, offending people and pissing them off, alienating and feeling alienated, and retreating into self-imposed quarantine. I'm not quite vain enough to believe I'm the only person who's listened to these songs and felt such things, but that doesn't diminish the impact. It's not been good. I love both songs, one of them is very beautiful, the other very witty, but the effect of them has left me feeling a bit on the edge of madness, or at least sociopathology. Far from the euphoric feeling Jack's music normally inspires in me. How do I reconcile this? Wallow in it and hope it passes on its own? Stop listening to these songs? Smack myself upside the head in the hopes of knocking some rationality back into my brain?
I don't know. But I told someone the other night that I'd caught myself wishing I could be like a crazy homeless person, standing on a street corner ranting and talking to myself. It would be easier than trying to be a normal, civil person, at least until I can figure out how to get back out of this state of isolated insanity.
I got away from writing here regularly for a while, in part because everything I wrote was beginning to sound so self-obsessed and sometimes self-pitying, to the point that it was becoming tedious even to me, much less to anyone who might've stumbled across those ramblings on the interwebs. But also because as I got deeper and deeper into Jack White's music, I became involved in the community of his fans. It began at a message board, expanded to the Third Man Records Vault and another message board, to a couple of Facebook groups, and, most importantly, to people I've met face-to-face at his shows. I still wrote about Jack's music here because there was so much in it that inspired me and that I wanted to dig into and mentally digest. But more and more, I didn't need this place to get my thoughts out, I was able to do it in all those other places and get instant feedback, have dialogues instead of these rambling monologues. I came out of isolation, at least via the written word. Physically, I'm still separate, as all of these people I relate to are spread around the U.S. and I see them rarely, whenever we gather for a show. The rest of the time, it's me on my own, until I sit down at the computer and reach out.
But lately something's been different. It's been building up gradually for a while, a feeling of disconnection, of distance, from the community I've felt such a part of, from both the internet "friends" I relate to and the real friends I've formed an emotional connection with. Is it my old pattern rearing its head, my apparent inability to have long-lasting relationships with people? What's behind that, anyway? Whatever it is, it started out early. I was always one of those kids who was off by themselves with a book or exploring in the woods. I had friends, but still spent a lot of time alone. Then an incident in 6th grade led to complete ostracism, turning me into one of those kids sitting shunned on the side of the playground. High school was no better, especially after I became one of three punk rockers in the entire school and walked a daily gauntlet of derision from the jocks and popular kids. Exposure to my parents' constant arguing didn't help, either, as it was just one more thing to block out, to build a wall against.
If you've ever read the book Cold Mountain (and I mean the book, not the film Jack White was in), you may understand when I say that I strongly identify with the main female character, Ada, who is described as "eccentric and bristly". Ada's physical isolation in Black Cove is, of course, a metaphor for her isolation from people in general, which is due in large part to how she chooses to relate to those around her. She has little patience for the accepted mores of the city culture she was raised in, and is at a loss in the completely unfamiliar realm of country society. She frequently ends up saying the wrong thing in the wrong way, often as a means to keep people at a distance either intentionally or unconsciously. As a result, there's a wall around her, built by her own hands using the bricks of other people's inability to comprehend her. To say that I understand that alienation would be an understatement, despite the friendships I've formed over the last few years.
For the past couple weeks, that feeling's been intensely strong. Part of it is envy of those friends whose schedules have allowed them to attend recent shows on Jack's current tour for the new album. These are people I genuinely like and have enjoyed spending time with, but I find myself not wanting to hear from them because the few details I've heard of these shows make me bitterly resentful that I've not been there. It's an ugly reaction, one that makes me loathe myself, and that makes me retreat even further from these people because I don't want to expose them to my ugliness. But the last few days, it's become even worse. Without any rational clue why, I've been peevish, angry, melancholy-- lashing out, crying while driving in the car, having arguments with people in my head that I wouldn't allow myself to have anywhere else, stuck in isolation inside my own brain instead of focused outward. Then it dawned on me-- Part of it is this record, Lazaretto. This depressed and angry mood's been with me ever since the night I received it last week, from the moment I read The Admitting of Patience, a play in one act at the beginning of the book that accompanied the album:
THE ADMITTING OF PATIENCE
(one act)
PERSON ONE
(Male or Female)
I fantasize about hospital beds,
jail, work camps, the army.
I thought of branding myself,
tattooing a message to myself
With a symbol that I can't be
at peace with anyone.
A raft, A boy in the water. I'm hurt,
but not afraid of physical pain.
PERSON TWO
(M or F)
I don't feel very good about myself.
People always leave me.
Nobody can stand me for very long.
I wish I could cut my tongue out,
or take out the part of my brain
that has opinions. Or cares.
I wish I could be simple.
Be quiet, introverted, or shy.
I'm half way in between a wallflower
at a party and elvis presley.
People love one or the other.
In between is no place to be.
PERSON THREE
I see.
The impact of that practically brought me to my knees. It did bring me to tears, and I don't mean just welling up in my eyes. I mean shoulder-shaking sobs. Good lord above, talk about identifying with something someone's expressed. And then to put on the record and discover the song Alone In My Home, in which he sings
These stones
That are thrown against my bones
Break through
But they hurt less as time goes on
And alone
I build my own home
To be sure
That nobody can touch me now
That's followed immediately by That Black Bat Licorice, with its refrain of
Don't you want to lose the
Part of the brain that has opinions?
To not even know what you are doing?
Or care about yourself or
Your species in the billions?
Listening to these two songs feels as if he's been in my own head, pulled out my own thoughts and feelings and experiences, all those incidents of feeling the wrong thing, thinking the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing, offending people and pissing them off, alienating and feeling alienated, and retreating into self-imposed quarantine. I'm not quite vain enough to believe I'm the only person who's listened to these songs and felt such things, but that doesn't diminish the impact. It's not been good. I love both songs, one of them is very beautiful, the other very witty, but the effect of them has left me feeling a bit on the edge of madness, or at least sociopathology. Far from the euphoric feeling Jack's music normally inspires in me. How do I reconcile this? Wallow in it and hope it passes on its own? Stop listening to these songs? Smack myself upside the head in the hopes of knocking some rationality back into my brain?
I don't know. But I told someone the other night that I'd caught myself wishing I could be like a crazy homeless person, standing on a street corner ranting and talking to myself. It would be easier than trying to be a normal, civil person, at least until I can figure out how to get back out of this state of isolated insanity.
June 8, 2014
Modes of transportation: How fast is a black castrum doloris?
 |
| Thanks, Wikipedia |
"She's built for speed like a black castrum doloris..."
Delightful irony from a man who professes to dislike irony, at least of the hipster variety. One of the best songs on the new album, too, one that I had a feeling I'd love based on the title alone-- That Black Bat Licorice. The rest of Lazaretto, though...? After being bowled over when I first listened the other night, I ripped the record for the car the next morning and went out for a drive. There's something about listening while driving that gets me deeper into music, probably because the music fills the car in a way that it doesn't fill my apartment and, in the right circumstances, there's nothing else to distract me from listening fully. And I've written before about the combination of high speed and good tunes being my favorite, most easily-accessible high. Somehow, though, I came home from that drive feeling distanced from the music. The drive to and from work the next day was the same. As a devoted addict, it scared me a bit that I might not be able to connect to this record. I felt that all of the songs were good, but I just wasn't having the visceral, emotional reaction that I normally have to Jack White's music. I wasn't getting the junkie rush I've gotten from every one of his other albums. Was it jetlag from the previous week's business trip in Las Vegas? Was it the the songs themselves not grabbing me as much with repeated listenings? Did I overreact on first listen because I'd been anticipating this record for so damned long? I dunno. But today I threw my bike on top of the car and went for a drive with Lazaretto again, heading further from home, out into more rural parts of Maryland. Past the congestion of traffic, able to flow swiftly along first the highway and then curvy backroads, the songs began to sweep me away and I was suddenly transported by them the way I'd expected to be. Would You Fight For My Love?, in particular, soared on the highway in a way that it couldn't in the distractions of heavier traffic closer to the city. That Black Bat Licorice, however, is a great rush hour tune, having inspired me the previous evening to roll down the windows and let it rattle its way out of the car at full volume as I inched along one of downtown D.C.'s main arteries.
So when I arrived at my destination, I pulled the bike off of the car and hit the trail. And damned if the songs didn't come with me. Entitlement, Alone In My Home, Fight For My Love, Black Bat, all played through my head while riding, interweaving with each other. Fight For My Love, again, turned out to be a galvanizing song to move to. When I turned around to head back after a bit over 13 miles, it began a repeated refrain in my head as I kicked into high gear, both literally and figuratively, and began flying along fast enough that I prayed more than once I wouldn't end up having to dodge any snakes or squirrels. (Rabbits are fine, they hop off the trail when they hear you coming. Squirrels, on the other hand, dash back and forth like dingbats before deciding which way to go. And snakes just lie there in the way.) Then Black Bat Licorice and Three Women began alternating and I got into a zone, keeping up the high gear, high speed pace for miles. Got back to the car with rubbery legs and a big smile on my face.
Sometimes the journeys music takes us on just don't follow the road we expect. Does this mean that I broke through my temporary disconnect with Lazaretto? I've no idea. Could be just another phase in my exploration of this record, with today's good vibe expedited by great driving conditions and a terrific bike ride. But that's fine. As the old cliché goes, after all, the journey can be more important than the destination.
So how the hell fast is a castrum doloris, anyway?
June 4, 2014
Lazaretto: The first listen is fortunately not a case of staircase wit
For anyone who feels the same as the anonymous troll who posted a comment a while back blasting me for my fan-girlism, just click away now and pretend you never saw this page of the internet 'cause I'm going to babble about Jack White's new record, Lazaretto. Its official release date is next Tuesday, June 10th, but as a member of the Vault whose name begins with the right letter for a change, I got it a handful of days early. The subscription package it came in includes not only a split-color version of the Ultra LP, but also a 45rpm 7" of demos of two songs from the album and a hard-bound book of lyrics, images, and notes about the record. I was as excited about that book as about the record itself, as I adore both lyric sheets and any insight I can gather into the creation of art.
When I opened up my package this evening and slid all the pieces out, my first thought was "Damn, the book is so small". It's only about 6 x 7 inches in size, which obviously implied that photos would be small and insights limited. But then I opened it and read the first page, a play in one act entitled The Admitting of Patience, and, before I even read the next page or unwrapped the album, found myself standing in my kitchen reduced to weeping.
It's things like that short little one-page, three-character play, just like the liner notes of the first White Stripes album, that I identify with so strongly that they reach through my ribcage, grab my heart, and move me to tears. They're also the things that make it so hard to separate Jack's words from him, to hear them as stories, the way he wants them to be heard, instead of as confessions or exposures of some kind. He talks about such things in interviews-- sometimes directly, sometimes implied-- and then he writes about them and it's pretty much impossible to not make assumptions. I've gone through that, analyzing (or over-analyzing, as the troll accused me of) the shit out of his lyrics with friends, analyzing him through his lyrics, but for what? Yeah, the man is as intriguing as they come, but what does thinking I understand him get me? And the stories are fascinating in their own right, as much as any novel or film that deals in love, relationships (intimate and otherwise), and human nature. So I'll take Jack at his word and view the pronouns in his songs as something pliable, come up with my own faces and figures for them, let the stories play in my mind's eye with characters of my own making.
Three Women is an easy one to impute to Jack himself, considering the hair colors and cities mentioned in the song, but then he goes and credits Blind Willie McTell as co-writer in the liner notes and it becomes even more obvious than it needs to be that this song is an homage. It's Jack making it clear that he's following the lineage of the old blues storytellers, the family that it's always been his goal to be a part of. In that regard, it's completely fitting that this one begins the album.
Lazaretto, the title track, puts me in mind of Icky Thump's Little Cream Soda, with its conversation with a God who answers with no answer at all. But while Little Cream Soda's protagonist is lost and wandering, feeling that he's getting nowhere, the hero of Lazaretto may be imprisoned and trying to escape, but is in no way lost. He knows who and what he is and it's clear this quarantine situation ain't gonna last long.
(Remember: All pronouns, Jack's and mine here, are completely flexible and substitutable.)
Temporary Ground is a song I slightly dreaded hearing the first time, as there's a snippet of it in a recent NPR interview that makes it sound as if backing vocalist Lillie Mae Rische dominates the song. I've never been a fan of female singers, there's something about pretty female voices that has just always turned me off. Rische sounds a lot like Emmylou Harris on the snippet I'd heard and I was indignant that Jack might ruin an otherwise lovely song by overwhelming it with a sound that's always made me cringe. But damned if he didn't make the song overall so beautiful that I found myself overlooking her voice and focusing on his, the music, and the words. One line in particular reached out to me right away-- "Screaming without sound"-- reminding me of a conversation waaaay back in high school in which I talked with a friend about being desperately unhappy and she told me that I shouldn't keep my problems inside, all to myself, that I shouldn't "scream silently". I've no idea yet what the rest of the song might be about, but that line alone creates a connection for me, one worth ignoring an annoying female voice for.
I think that Would You Fight For My Love? is a song meant to be played live. I heard it that way earlier this year at Record Store Day and felt that it strongly resembled the Raconteurs song Blue Veins. While the latter song is a declaration of love and trust and this one struck me as more anguished, the drama of it was comparable. Jack writes in the book that it's constructed of three separate songs and I wonder if that's why it's lacking in passion on the record, because it wasn't just one outpouring. In the studio version, it's just not as effective as Blue Veins is on Broken Boy Soldiers, but I think that, like Blue Veins, it will become something else altogether when played live, when Jack is wired from feeding off of an audience and pours all of his energy and passion into it.
High Ball Stepper blew me away when I first heard it back at the beginning of April, when this album was first announced. I loved that Jack introduced the album to the world with an instrumental track, and it surprised me that I loved this so much. I get into music through words and voice, especially Jack's music, so to love an instrumental track so much was completely unexpected. But I listened to it on repeat for days without feeling that anything was lacking. It's buzzing and vicious and literally, physically, feels as if it's scraping my sternum.
Just One Drink is like Missing Pieces, from Blunderbuss, for me. The old story Jack learned from Son House of "ain't it hard when you love someone who don't love you", told fairly conventionally but with great imagery.
Jack writes in a section of the book "i got so sick and tired of editing these songs at times, frustrated, and disinterested, only to find myself in love with the song the next day and drawn back in. the challenges that keep you up at night, that seem to cause strain, sometimes are the locked door that once opened, relieves you of other stresses in your life. music does that a lot for me, and it makes me scared to think of what could ever take it's place". Replace "music" with "love" or "friendship" or any other word that involves our dealings with other people and life in general, and he's really on to something.
Ghosts are mentioned a few times on this record, and in the thanks at the end of the book. All those mentions remind me strongly of the song that initially yanked me into his music, 300mph Torrential Outpour Blues, with its opening line of "calling out to ghosts that are no longer there". The song on Lazaretto that's the most full of ghosts is Alone In My Home, and here again I was brought to tears. It echoes too many of my own thoughts and feelings, the feeling of being separate from the rest of the human race, some sort of alien in a crowd of people. Like 300mph Blues, it hits way too close to home and, yeah, the pun is fully intended.
And yet again, That Black Bat Licorice brings to mind songs from Icky Thump, the record that introduced me to his music. It's got the same witty and whimsical wordplay as tunes like 300mph Blues, Little Cream Soda, Rag & Bone, and Martyr For My Love For You. I've no idea what the hell the metaphors and references in this song mean, but it doesn't matter. Again, the imagery is so fucking pervasive and vivid that you can get lost in it. Marry that imagery to crazily driving music and vocal delivery and, like Rag and Bone, it's almost too easy to miss the parts that are meant to make you think.
Comments from people who'd listened to Entitlement before I was able to immediately branded it as Jack's most blatant "cranky old man" song, to the point that I was completely taken aback to find it so damned pretty. The music is lovely, as is his delivery of the words. To me, he brilliantly softened the edges of what other people have taken as a complaint and, again, given those who are willing to accept it as such something to think about.
It's going to take me a while to figure out the story of I Think I Found the Culprit, and I've got no problem with that. I can't help, though, but be reminded of an interaction I had with him a few years ago in the Vault chatroom, when I popped in only to find he was there, being inundated with questions from dozens of people, and I began to tell the story of The Crow and The Magpies, an allegory of the chat experience when he's there. I got as far in my tale as describing a flock of magpies descending around the crow when he threw out the line "two magpies together but silent". And here, in this song, two birds perfectly still. Lovely little personal coincidence that means absolutely nothing but still makes me smile.
If for no other reason, I love Want and Able for the fact that it's truly Jack solo. Two tracks, one of his voice accompanied by himself on piano, and another of him singing along with himself on acoustic guitar. It's simple and beautiful and I wish there were more like it (Temporary Ground, for example). The story's a universal one, though I find it interesting that a very meaningful bit of the lyrics that are in the book were left out on the record. Also interesting that the genders were switched from the time of writing to the time of recording, a great example of how fluidly Jack's pronouns should be perceived.
Love or hate this record, there's so much wisdom buried in the words of these songs. And there's the irony, the contradiction that Jack has always summed up and presented so well-- Wisdom doesn't make life any easier. Understanding these elements of human nature doesn't keep us from fucking up, from tripping in the minefields constantly laid by ourselves and others. And this is why his stories resonate. They're our stories as well as his own.
When I opened up my package this evening and slid all the pieces out, my first thought was "Damn, the book is so small". It's only about 6 x 7 inches in size, which obviously implied that photos would be small and insights limited. But then I opened it and read the first page, a play in one act entitled The Admitting of Patience, and, before I even read the next page or unwrapped the album, found myself standing in my kitchen reduced to weeping.
It's things like that short little one-page, three-character play, just like the liner notes of the first White Stripes album, that I identify with so strongly that they reach through my ribcage, grab my heart, and move me to tears. They're also the things that make it so hard to separate Jack's words from him, to hear them as stories, the way he wants them to be heard, instead of as confessions or exposures of some kind. He talks about such things in interviews-- sometimes directly, sometimes implied-- and then he writes about them and it's pretty much impossible to not make assumptions. I've gone through that, analyzing (or over-analyzing, as the troll accused me of) the shit out of his lyrics with friends, analyzing him through his lyrics, but for what? Yeah, the man is as intriguing as they come, but what does thinking I understand him get me? And the stories are fascinating in their own right, as much as any novel or film that deals in love, relationships (intimate and otherwise), and human nature. So I'll take Jack at his word and view the pronouns in his songs as something pliable, come up with my own faces and figures for them, let the stories play in my mind's eye with characters of my own making.
Three Women is an easy one to impute to Jack himself, considering the hair colors and cities mentioned in the song, but then he goes and credits Blind Willie McTell as co-writer in the liner notes and it becomes even more obvious than it needs to be that this song is an homage. It's Jack making it clear that he's following the lineage of the old blues storytellers, the family that it's always been his goal to be a part of. In that regard, it's completely fitting that this one begins the album.
Lazaretto, the title track, puts me in mind of Icky Thump's Little Cream Soda, with its conversation with a God who answers with no answer at all. But while Little Cream Soda's protagonist is lost and wandering, feeling that he's getting nowhere, the hero of Lazaretto may be imprisoned and trying to escape, but is in no way lost. He knows who and what he is and it's clear this quarantine situation ain't gonna last long.
(Remember: All pronouns, Jack's and mine here, are completely flexible and substitutable.)
Temporary Ground is a song I slightly dreaded hearing the first time, as there's a snippet of it in a recent NPR interview that makes it sound as if backing vocalist Lillie Mae Rische dominates the song. I've never been a fan of female singers, there's something about pretty female voices that has just always turned me off. Rische sounds a lot like Emmylou Harris on the snippet I'd heard and I was indignant that Jack might ruin an otherwise lovely song by overwhelming it with a sound that's always made me cringe. But damned if he didn't make the song overall so beautiful that I found myself overlooking her voice and focusing on his, the music, and the words. One line in particular reached out to me right away-- "Screaming without sound"-- reminding me of a conversation waaaay back in high school in which I talked with a friend about being desperately unhappy and she told me that I shouldn't keep my problems inside, all to myself, that I shouldn't "scream silently". I've no idea yet what the rest of the song might be about, but that line alone creates a connection for me, one worth ignoring an annoying female voice for.
I think that Would You Fight For My Love? is a song meant to be played live. I heard it that way earlier this year at Record Store Day and felt that it strongly resembled the Raconteurs song Blue Veins. While the latter song is a declaration of love and trust and this one struck me as more anguished, the drama of it was comparable. Jack writes in the book that it's constructed of three separate songs and I wonder if that's why it's lacking in passion on the record, because it wasn't just one outpouring. In the studio version, it's just not as effective as Blue Veins is on Broken Boy Soldiers, but I think that, like Blue Veins, it will become something else altogether when played live, when Jack is wired from feeding off of an audience and pours all of his energy and passion into it.
High Ball Stepper blew me away when I first heard it back at the beginning of April, when this album was first announced. I loved that Jack introduced the album to the world with an instrumental track, and it surprised me that I loved this so much. I get into music through words and voice, especially Jack's music, so to love an instrumental track so much was completely unexpected. But I listened to it on repeat for days without feeling that anything was lacking. It's buzzing and vicious and literally, physically, feels as if it's scraping my sternum.
Just One Drink is like Missing Pieces, from Blunderbuss, for me. The old story Jack learned from Son House of "ain't it hard when you love someone who don't love you", told fairly conventionally but with great imagery.
Jack writes in a section of the book "i got so sick and tired of editing these songs at times, frustrated, and disinterested, only to find myself in love with the song the next day and drawn back in. the challenges that keep you up at night, that seem to cause strain, sometimes are the locked door that once opened, relieves you of other stresses in your life. music does that a lot for me, and it makes me scared to think of what could ever take it's place". Replace "music" with "love" or "friendship" or any other word that involves our dealings with other people and life in general, and he's really on to something.
Ghosts are mentioned a few times on this record, and in the thanks at the end of the book. All those mentions remind me strongly of the song that initially yanked me into his music, 300mph Torrential Outpour Blues, with its opening line of "calling out to ghosts that are no longer there". The song on Lazaretto that's the most full of ghosts is Alone In My Home, and here again I was brought to tears. It echoes too many of my own thoughts and feelings, the feeling of being separate from the rest of the human race, some sort of alien in a crowd of people. Like 300mph Blues, it hits way too close to home and, yeah, the pun is fully intended.
And yet again, That Black Bat Licorice brings to mind songs from Icky Thump, the record that introduced me to his music. It's got the same witty and whimsical wordplay as tunes like 300mph Blues, Little Cream Soda, Rag & Bone, and Martyr For My Love For You. I've no idea what the hell the metaphors and references in this song mean, but it doesn't matter. Again, the imagery is so fucking pervasive and vivid that you can get lost in it. Marry that imagery to crazily driving music and vocal delivery and, like Rag and Bone, it's almost too easy to miss the parts that are meant to make you think.
Comments from people who'd listened to Entitlement before I was able to immediately branded it as Jack's most blatant "cranky old man" song, to the point that I was completely taken aback to find it so damned pretty. The music is lovely, as is his delivery of the words. To me, he brilliantly softened the edges of what other people have taken as a complaint and, again, given those who are willing to accept it as such something to think about.
It's going to take me a while to figure out the story of I Think I Found the Culprit, and I've got no problem with that. I can't help, though, but be reminded of an interaction I had with him a few years ago in the Vault chatroom, when I popped in only to find he was there, being inundated with questions from dozens of people, and I began to tell the story of The Crow and The Magpies, an allegory of the chat experience when he's there. I got as far in my tale as describing a flock of magpies descending around the crow when he threw out the line "two magpies together but silent". And here, in this song, two birds perfectly still. Lovely little personal coincidence that means absolutely nothing but still makes me smile.
If for no other reason, I love Want and Able for the fact that it's truly Jack solo. Two tracks, one of his voice accompanied by himself on piano, and another of him singing along with himself on acoustic guitar. It's simple and beautiful and I wish there were more like it (Temporary Ground, for example). The story's a universal one, though I find it interesting that a very meaningful bit of the lyrics that are in the book were left out on the record. Also interesting that the genders were switched from the time of writing to the time of recording, a great example of how fluidly Jack's pronouns should be perceived.
Love or hate this record, there's so much wisdom buried in the words of these songs. And there's the irony, the contradiction that Jack has always summed up and presented so well-- Wisdom doesn't make life any easier. Understanding these elements of human nature doesn't keep us from fucking up, from tripping in the minefields constantly laid by ourselves and others. And this is why his stories resonate. They're our stories as well as his own.
April 27, 2014
The strange and mighty "Power of My Love" **
So, back on New Year's Day of this year, I began a new musical infatuation. I woke up that morning wanting to get into Elvis Presley. Of course, I've heard Elvis' music over the years. I even seem to recall one of my grandmothers having some of his albums and talking about him once or twice. But I never got into him, y'know? But suddenly on January 1st I decided it was time. I had a day-trip planned with a lot of driving, so before leaving the house I did a quick search of Amazon.com, found and downloaded The Essential Elvis Presley, and loaded it onto a flash drive for the car. By the time I got home that night, I was deeply hooked and completely understood why the man became the star he was and still is. Since then, I've picked up the gorgeous six-lp 50th Anniversary box-set, gotten a couple of his movies from Netflix (I highly recommend King Creole, it's a blast) and read a few bios: One heart-breakingly sad, another heart-warming, and one just begun-- Peter Guralnick's two-part Last Train to Memphis/Careless Love.
This new infatuation, though, has in no way eclipsed the already existing one, my addiction to Jack White and his music. It's not inconceivable that Jack might've led me to Elvis, the same way he's led me into so much other music, from blues to rockabilly to garage rock. After all, he's been Elvis--
And the connection doesn't end there. Jack's worked with a few of Elvis' former girlfriends in recent years. Both clearly grasp(ed) the effect of taking the stage in distinctive clothing (Elvis' early pink'n'black getups and those iconic white jumpsuits, Jack's red, white'n'black with the White Stripes and equally color-coordinated outfits in every other incarnation), and both dyed their hair black and play(ed) up their eyes with makeup. Both took existing musical styles and turned them into something just a bit different. But that's all superficial stuff. Something I read in Last Train to Memphis summed up what it really is. Guralnick quoted Tom Perryman, a young dj and promoter from Gladewater, TX, describing Elvis at nineteen, just a couple months after the release of That's Alright:
"You know, he was really a natural. When Elvis was performing, everyone had the same basic reaction. It was almost spontaneous. It reminded me of the early days, of where I was raised in East Texas and going to these 'Holy Roller' Brush Arbor meetings: seeing these people get religion. I said 'Man, that's something.' You'd see it in the later years with the big sound systems and the lights, but Elvis could do it if there wasn't but ten people (in the room). He never realized what he had till later years. He said, 'Man, this sure is a good crowd in this part of the country. Are they always that way?'. I said, 'No, man. They never seen anything like you.' Nobody had."
That's Jack. I missed the White Stripes, as I didn't get into his music until the band was already unofficially over. But I've spoken to many people who did experience the Stripes, read many a review of their shows, and have experienced for myself all of his post-Stripes incarnations. I would bet money that every fellow fan I know would agree that seeing Jack perform live is like getting religion and that they'd never before seen anything like him. And he puts the same passion into every show, whether it's in front of ten people or one of those places with a big sound system and lights and a few thousand people.
So just imagine the degree to which my silly l'il fan-girl brain was blown when my two infatuations recently came together.
Last Saturday was Record Store Day and, like last year, I headed to Nashville to celebrate the day at Third Man Records. The anticipation for this year's event, though, was light years beyond the previous one. On April 3rd, just two days after announcing on April Fool's Day that Jack would be releasing his second solo album, Lazaretto, this summer, Third Man announced that on Record Store Day, he would take the stage of the Blue Room to record, direct-to-acetate, a live version of the first single, also titled Lazaretto. Not only that, but the acetate would then be rushed down the road to United Record Pressing Plant (who presses all of Third Man's releases), an abundance of singles would be pressed, and then said singles would be rushed back to Third Man to sell to the fans waiting in anxious anticipation. And not only that, but tickets to attend Jack's performance would be on sale within a couple of hours of this announcement. Did my stomach immediately begin doing flips? Did I actually tell my boss that I needed to be off the clock for a short while that afternoon with my office door closed? Did I then clock out, shut my door, and pounce on that ticket sale like a hawk after its prey, scoring one of those highly sought-after $100 tickets within a matter of seconds? Affirmative to all of the above.
On Friday two weeks later, I arrived in Nashville and checked into my hotel around 5:30pm. Taking a quick peek at Facebook, I found that two of my show buddies from the 2012 Blunderbuss tour were already at Third Man and had begun the line for Saturday morning's 10am performance. When I commented that they were awesome, the immediate reply was "Get your butt down here!". So I did. And I was glad and grateful for it in so many ways.
First was the fried chicken that I picked up for our dinner. If you ever find yourself in Nashville, brave the lines at Hattie B's. Lord above, I can pretty much guarantee you won't be sorry. And then I was glad for the night that followed with the terrific bunch of people who were there. From pressing our ears to the metal door that leads to the Blue Room so that we could hear the sound-check (and being chastised for it by Jack's tour manager), to curling up in a camp-chair with a blanket to stake our place in line while my buddies crawled into their tent to sleep, to waking up from a light doze to see an almost-full moon glowing in the sky over the Wardenclyffe tower-replica perched atop Third Man, to taking everyone for a McDonald's run at 6am and coming back to find a bird flying in and out through the TMR logo in the metal door, testing the acoustics inside the hallway, and then perching inside the logo to serenade us before flitting off... Thinking back on that night and morning, I kind of feel sorry for Jack that we've experienced something he'll probably never be able to-- The magic of spending a beautiful, chilly night outside the gleaming black walls of the place he created.
But I was mostly grateful that I'd rushed over there when told to because I was third in line to enter the venue when the doors opened at 8:30am. My buddies and I snagged prime real estate at the front of the stage and, oh, how different it was at this show, considering how tiny that stage is and how close we were to the action upon it. Very kindly, Third Man put together a video re-cap of the entire day to save me from having to babble about it. Suffice it to say, the grin that's visible on my face about 18 seconds in sums up the state I was in pretty much the entire 20+ hours I spent on the premises--
So where's the Elvis connection? You heard a snippet of it in that video, when Jack and the band covered Power of My Love, an Elvis tune I'd not yet heard of, as the b-side of the live Lazaretto World's Fastest Record. As terrific a song as Lazaretto is, it's that cover tune that I and some of my friends have been talking about since.
Where Elvis' version is all self-assured, sultry seduction, Jack's is a blatant, nakedly urgent declaration that this is how it is and now what are you gonna do about it? Elvis croons the words, Jack spits and shrieks them (while still managing to slip in a bit of that Elvis quaver), but both versions have the same knee-weakening effect. Probably not in the least surprising, but I've been giddy over this song all week.
In an interview with Marc Maron (skip ahead to about 29 minutes in) in 2012, Jack described Elvis as an "alien" because of what he did with music. I don't know whether Jack doesn't realize it or would be too modest to say it out loud, but it's time for him to admit that he's one, too.
Been a tad giddy over these, too, so just for the hell of it...
** Yes, I do know that the lyric is "strength and mighty power of my love". But it sounds like "strange" when Jack sings it and that's somehow just so very appropriate.
This new infatuation, though, has in no way eclipsed the already existing one, my addiction to Jack White and his music. It's not inconceivable that Jack might've led me to Elvis, the same way he's led me into so much other music, from blues to rockabilly to garage rock. After all, he's been Elvis--
And the connection doesn't end there. Jack's worked with a few of Elvis' former girlfriends in recent years. Both clearly grasp(ed) the effect of taking the stage in distinctive clothing (Elvis' early pink'n'black getups and those iconic white jumpsuits, Jack's red, white'n'black with the White Stripes and equally color-coordinated outfits in every other incarnation), and both dyed their hair black and play(ed) up their eyes with makeup. Both took existing musical styles and turned them into something just a bit different. But that's all superficial stuff. Something I read in Last Train to Memphis summed up what it really is. Guralnick quoted Tom Perryman, a young dj and promoter from Gladewater, TX, describing Elvis at nineteen, just a couple months after the release of That's Alright:
"You know, he was really a natural. When Elvis was performing, everyone had the same basic reaction. It was almost spontaneous. It reminded me of the early days, of where I was raised in East Texas and going to these 'Holy Roller' Brush Arbor meetings: seeing these people get religion. I said 'Man, that's something.' You'd see it in the later years with the big sound systems and the lights, but Elvis could do it if there wasn't but ten people (in the room). He never realized what he had till later years. He said, 'Man, this sure is a good crowd in this part of the country. Are they always that way?'. I said, 'No, man. They never seen anything like you.' Nobody had."
That's Jack. I missed the White Stripes, as I didn't get into his music until the band was already unofficially over. But I've spoken to many people who did experience the Stripes, read many a review of their shows, and have experienced for myself all of his post-Stripes incarnations. I would bet money that every fellow fan I know would agree that seeing Jack perform live is like getting religion and that they'd never before seen anything like him. And he puts the same passion into every show, whether it's in front of ten people or one of those places with a big sound system and lights and a few thousand people.
So just imagine the degree to which my silly l'il fan-girl brain was blown when my two infatuations recently came together.
Last Saturday was Record Store Day and, like last year, I headed to Nashville to celebrate the day at Third Man Records. The anticipation for this year's event, though, was light years beyond the previous one. On April 3rd, just two days after announcing on April Fool's Day that Jack would be releasing his second solo album, Lazaretto, this summer, Third Man announced that on Record Store Day, he would take the stage of the Blue Room to record, direct-to-acetate, a live version of the first single, also titled Lazaretto. Not only that, but the acetate would then be rushed down the road to United Record Pressing Plant (who presses all of Third Man's releases), an abundance of singles would be pressed, and then said singles would be rushed back to Third Man to sell to the fans waiting in anxious anticipation. And not only that, but tickets to attend Jack's performance would be on sale within a couple of hours of this announcement. Did my stomach immediately begin doing flips? Did I actually tell my boss that I needed to be off the clock for a short while that afternoon with my office door closed? Did I then clock out, shut my door, and pounce on that ticket sale like a hawk after its prey, scoring one of those highly sought-after $100 tickets within a matter of seconds? Affirmative to all of the above.
 |
| Yup, that'd be me. The thing in itself. |
First was the fried chicken that I picked up for our dinner. If you ever find yourself in Nashville, brave the lines at Hattie B's. Lord above, I can pretty much guarantee you won't be sorry. And then I was glad for the night that followed with the terrific bunch of people who were there. From pressing our ears to the metal door that leads to the Blue Room so that we could hear the sound-check (and being chastised for it by Jack's tour manager), to curling up in a camp-chair with a blanket to stake our place in line while my buddies crawled into their tent to sleep, to waking up from a light doze to see an almost-full moon glowing in the sky over the Wardenclyffe tower-replica perched atop Third Man, to taking everyone for a McDonald's run at 6am and coming back to find a bird flying in and out through the TMR logo in the metal door, testing the acoustics inside the hallway, and then perching inside the logo to serenade us before flitting off... Thinking back on that night and morning, I kind of feel sorry for Jack that we've experienced something he'll probably never be able to-- The magic of spending a beautiful, chilly night outside the gleaming black walls of the place he created.
 | |||
This photo and all following courtesy of and property of Mike Dziama |
So where's the Elvis connection? You heard a snippet of it in that video, when Jack and the band covered Power of My Love, an Elvis tune I'd not yet heard of, as the b-side of the live Lazaretto World's Fastest Record. As terrific a song as Lazaretto is, it's that cover tune that I and some of my friends have been talking about since.
Where Elvis' version is all self-assured, sultry seduction, Jack's is a blatant, nakedly urgent declaration that this is how it is and now what are you gonna do about it? Elvis croons the words, Jack spits and shrieks them (while still managing to slip in a bit of that Elvis quaver), but both versions have the same knee-weakening effect. Probably not in the least surprising, but I've been giddy over this song all week.
In an interview with Marc Maron (skip ahead to about 29 minutes in) in 2012, Jack described Elvis as an "alien" because of what he did with music. I don't know whether Jack doesn't realize it or would be too modest to say it out loud, but it's time for him to admit that he's one, too.
Been a tad giddy over these, too, so just for the hell of it...
** Yes, I do know that the lyric is "strength and mighty power of my love". But it sounds like "strange" when Jack sings it and that's somehow just so very appropriate.
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