Get a box of tissues, then sit down and strap in for this one. It’s nine and a half minutes long. The length isn’t the reason you need to strap in, though; you’ll be too busy dealing with a heavy emotional reaction from it.
(content warning: frank discussion of thoughts of self-loathing, self-harm, suicide, etc., plus other physical and mental health issues. This video has an ultimately positive message, but it shouldn’t be a replacement for actual therapy.)
So, I’d never heard of Ren until a few weeks ago. This track features just his voice and acoustic guitar, and its video was recorded in a single take along with the audio. He’s not lip-synching; you can clearly see the mic setup at one point near the end, which I won’t spoil because it deserves to be experienced for itself.
I must’ve listened to this track at least two dozen times in the past two days alone, and every single time, it hits me like a goddamn Mack truck. It’s easily one of the most powerful performances I’ve seen in any medium and one of the most important pieces of art produced this decade¹.
I’ll spoiler tag the rest of my discussion of this track. Watch the video before you open the spoiler.
Ren is Ren Gill, a Welsh musician based out of Brighton formerly known for his work with the band The Big Push. In 2010, he signed with Sony Records, and shortly after, he became severely ill, which resulted in his being dropped from the label. After a decade of being misdiagnosed (which he discusses in more detail in his other songs), he finally was correctly diagnosed with Lyme disease and received a stem cell transplant. He is currently in Canada receiving further treatment for the disease.
He has also suffered from auditory and visual hallucinations, which heavily inspired this track. He explains:
Quote:
Up until I was 9 years old, I would intermittently hear a voice in my head that was not my own. The voice was distinctly different to mine, and always negative. It would self criticise or urge me to do things I knew to be morally wrong. The most peculiar thing about the voice was that it took no effort on my behalf to produce. My own thoughts always felt like there was a process that required effort to bring them to the forefront of my mind, this voice appeared as though it was spoken by another. The sentences felt predetermined like they had already been constructed.
I remember very vividly at 9 years old, becoming very frustrated with the voice. I stood in my back yard, internally screaming at the voice to be silent again and again, and it did. In a flash there was silence, to the point where my head felt like an empty room. I wasn't used to the quiet and that voice never returned. It almost felt lonely in my head.
When I got older I had intermittent bouts with auditory hallucinations where I would hear perfect symphonies, usually at night when drifting off to sleep. They were so clear that they sounded like they were emanating from a radio in the corner of my room. I knew they weren't there, but for some reason they never came with the feeling of fear. I also recall sitting on a bus at the age of 15, and hearing the sound of a crowded room, with about 100 voices chattering away, I was the only person apart from the driver on the bus.
These experiences were always very brief, and few and far between.
My last hallucination was during an intense bout of psychosis in 2015, and was my first visual hallucination. I was walking down a pavement after jumping out my mums car in a crossroads in a moment of frustration and distress with my condition. I was trying to run from myself. What appeared to be a homeless man with a dark complexion approached me, and asked me what was wrong. I explained that I had been sick most my life, and I wasn't sure I had the strength to continue. He looked at me, and smiled and told me 'everything is going to be okay in the end Ren.' I had not told him my name. There was something so overpoweringly sincere about this very simple message, which brought with it an overwhelming feeling of inner peace, and in a flash, he vanished.
My rational brain always linked these experiences to what the doctors have told me, that there are parts of my brain compromised by the autoimmunity in my body. That the myelin sheaths surrounding the complex electrical system that conduct my thoughts were damaged and compromised, causing these lucid experiences that I knew did not exist inside the physical world.
The part of me that edges away from logical and rational thought always attributed these thoughts to some kind of otherworldly intervention, that made my thoughts the battleground of some spiritual tug of war.
For a long time I never really acknowledged this part of myself, for with it brought the danger and stigma of sounding like a crazy person.
I decided with my latest release, to the best of my ability, to capture and express this chess match of thought.
I’ve never experienced a more honest and truthful description of the doubts that must plague every creative person. There’s always the nagging thought in the back of one’s mind, “You don’t do this as well as other people do; everything you’ve ever done is ripped off from others, and you’re worthless.” That voice isn’t true. But it never really goes away. The triumph isn’t to quiet the voice; the triumph is to not listen to it.
The two most powerful passages for me are these.
Quote:
I go by many names also
Some people know me as hope Some people know me as the voice that you hear when you loosen the noose on the rope
And you know how I know that I'll prosper?
'Cause I stand here beside you today
I have stood in the flames that cremated my brain and I didn't once flinch or shake
So cower at the man I've become
When I sing from the top of my lungs
That I won't retire, I'll stand in your fire
Inspire the meek to be strong
And when I am gone, I will rise
In the music that I left behind
Ferocious, persistent, immortal like you
We’re a coin with two different sides
Even reading it gives me goosebumps. The fact that he actually stands up after spending most of the song in a wheelchair moves me to tears. Every goddamn time. Then his singing. Even writing about it has me a mess.
The other passage is the ending.
Quote:
It wasn’t David versus Goliath, it was a pendulum
Eternally swaying from the dark to the light And the more intensely that the light shone, the darker the shadow it casts
It was never really a battle for me to win, it was an eternal dance
And like a dance, the more rigid I became, the harder it got
The more I cursed my clumsy footsteps, the more I struggled
So I got older
And I learned to relax, and I learned to soften, and that dance got easier
It is this eternal dance that separates human beings from angels, from demons, from gods
And I must not forget, we must not forget, that we are human beings
Brief tangent: coincidentally (or not), he uses the name of a game I’ve spent years working on five different times throughout his track. And one of Eternal’s central themes is exactly this: the need for balance. The balance of power, the balance between order and chaos, and especially the balance within oneself. This reflects a struggle much older than us; and trying too hard to be good, to be perfect, just makes us more flawed. I don’t think I could’ve articulated it more eloquently than he did if I’d tried, though.
“The more intensely that the light shone, the darker the shadow it casts” is a close paraphrase of a line from Carl Jung² describing an example of enantiodromia, the tendency of things to turn into their opposites, which is a central theme of Eternal (as is the shadow archetype as a whole). Enantiodromia is a central theme of this song as well, as is the idea that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Allowing ourselves to be consumed by the idea of perfection prevents us from actually living our lives, from making the mistakes that are necessary for the creative process.
Moreover, refusing to accept our flaws as human beings is itself a flaw. Admitting a flaw is the first step towards correcting it. Remembering that we are human and allowing ourselves to admit to our flaws is necessary for us to work to correct them, or to compensate for them in some other way.
This track is a master class on every level. It deserves all the hype and acclaim it’s received and then some.
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²“It is a psychological rule that the brighter the light, the blacker the shadow,” from Jung’s introduction to Fanny Moser’s Spuk: Irraglaube oder Wharglaube (Ghosts: False Belief or True).
¹The only other musical work I’ve encountered from this decade that I’d consider to be of comparable importance, for very different reasons, is Ashenspire’s Hostile Architecture. I’ve written a lengthy exegesis of that album that the band themselves liked enough to link on the blue bird site and the Faceplace, which I’ll link to eventually.
(Sorry for these being in reverse order, but the second footnote needed to be within the spoiler tag.)
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
I can’t recommend this album highly enough to people that like metal.
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²Terry Pratchett³ is undoubtedly a large part of the reason for my love of footnotes.
³GNU Terry Pratchett
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
We just saw Stick Men at a little shitkicker bar, and it was predictably superb. Markus Reuter, who plays a guitar of his own design and manufacture that works like a Chapman Stick, is a veritable toddler (age 50) compared to the musicians we usual see in concert. Drummer Pat Mastelotto of King Crimson and Mr. Mister fame, is 67 and still getting better somehow. Tony Levin is a freak of nature. He's 76, and when this Stick Men tour ends a few nights hence, he'll be heading off for rehearsals and a European tour with Peter Gabriel.
They did two hours of original material interspersed with some King Crimson favorites (Red, Larks Tongues in Aspic part 2, The Sheltering Sky, Level 5) and a tune from one of Robert Fripp's solo albums.
Later this week we've got Polish prog/metal band Riverside. They're basically newborn infants (the keyboard player is only 40, ffs).
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"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis D. Brandeis
"Psychos do not explode when sunlight hits them, I don't give a fuck how crazy they are." ~ S. Gecko
Hey Matlock, if you haven't heard these guys before, maybe this can help speed your recovery.
The album this track appears on consists mostly of "feat. X" tunes, even -- somehow -- progressive hip-hop. (My favorite feat.'er on there is Sophia Black.) This one, though, is pure instrumental magic, with Steve Goddamned Vai feat.'ing.
Gad DAMN. That is straight up spectacular! Thanks for the heads-up, Sock! Who would have suspected that Plano, TX could produce something like that.
My concert buddy from work and I saw Riverside last weekend, and it was predictably amazing. What a top-notch concert band! Was supposed to be doors at 7:00, shows at 8:00. I got there at 7:00 only to find that the band got delayed by snow-related road closures. The band categorically refused to cancel (they had to cancel a show here last year) but things were bigly delayed. Standing in line, we saw the bus and gear trailer arrive. Everyone busted their ass to get everything set up and soundchecked, and opening act came on around 9:30. The venue has no seats, so I spent over 5 hours on my feet. Didn't think my aged and infirmed joints were capable of that, so I was feeling like quite the badass until Tuesday morning when I ate it on an icy sidewalk. *Poof* Instant pathetic old man once again.
The opening act was two guys from a Chicago-based quartet called The Cyberiam. If I get a chance to see the entire band someday, I'll definitely do it.
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"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis D. Brandeis
"Psychos do not explode when sunlight hits them, I don't give a fuck how crazy they are." ~ S. Gecko
Re: One of those 'Wat'cha Listenin' To?' threads.
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Linear Mode
