i could listen to this all day
last sunday, while reading the paper & farting around the apartment, i listened to the entire back catalog of galaxie 500. it was fucking awesome.
the other day, i went to a jeff mangum concert. he had hadn’t played chicago in something like 15 years. at some point that night, my bro-in-law said “if he would’ve come out and played one song for my $38 ticket, i would’ve been happy with that.”
every single time i go to a cat power show, i think to myself, “man, i could listen to that girl sing all day long.” this thought occurs in various iterations: putting my cat power playlist on repeat; imagining a marathon concert that would put even bruce springsteen to shame; or chan marshall lounging around at our home, singing to me the words to clorox commercials or whatever else suits her fancy, all the livelong day (inbetween the times we’re making out, of course).
i may or may not have obsessive compulsive tendencies, especially w/r/t to music i like (ask any girl i’ve dated in the last 6 years what they think of the national after having dated me).
on tuesday, i created a new itunes playlist called “my ceremony” and loaded it on my ipod. it features only four tracks. they are different versions of the song “ceremony“—by the original band (joy division), the band formed from the ashes of joy division (new order), galaxie 500, and radiohead. i’ve been listening to it a lot the last couple days. because i really, really love that song. it’s probably my latest all-time favorite. but now i’m going to put that love to the test.
after mike doughty inspired me to quit facebook, i guess he’s also now sort of responsible for inspiring this (potentially asinine) experiment. in an interview about a year ago, doughty talked about the things in music that might only be revealed to someone after repeated listens. at the time, i felt like i knew what he was talking about because i’d recently developed a new appreciation for jeff buckley’s cover of “hallelujah” after hearing it for years. today, i’m going to try to replicate that depth of relationship with a song, but over the course of a single day.
here’s the plan. i’m writing all this introductory stuff on wednesday night. i’m going to watch control before going to bed to try to learn a little something about ian curtis, the joy division singer who killed himself just weeks after recording “ceremony” with his band (if you’re not familiar with this particular song’s history, you can get a quick primer via wikipedia). i’m going to put “ceremony” on repeat when i go to sleep. and after waking up, i’m going to listen to “ceremony” non-stop, all day, occasionally checking in here with an update on my thoughts, re: the song (or my status, re: declining mental health). i might reach some kind of transcendent moment, or i might just get really tired of this song yet keep listening anyway until i freak out, or maybe nothing interesting at all will happen and this post will just be shit. but i’m gonna give it a go & see what happens. stay tuned. or not.
7:16am chicago time/5:16 bark time (all times henceforth on bark time) | approx. number of plays: 95, mostly in my sleep
no weird dreams. disappointing. woke up with a clusterfuck of thoughts, though:
i figure this will be less like what a band goes through, playing the same song night after night on tour, and more like what a producer does in the studio—listening to every pop, crackle, riff, rim, whistle, and whisper, trying to take the song apart and see what makes it tick.
i’d heard a bunch of people say how influenced the national was by joy division, but never really heard that until now. i can’t not hear it now. i also never got the claim that weezer is hardcore ripping off the pixies, but maybe if i listened to bossa nova a billion times, i might.
this won’t be like torture, because i get to control the volume, which is maybe like cheating, but whatever. also: i got a 9-to-5, which involves meetings, which means breaks when i won’t have this song piping directly into my brain. though at that point, it may be so firmly lodged in there, that it doesn’t need to be actually playing anymore.
in control, ian curtis rather aggressively forced himself on a tv show host to get his band “on the telly.” ian didn’t understand what he was getting himself into. i can maybe empathize.
7:15am | approx. number of plays: maybe 25? (all joy division’s version thus far)
i had to take a ten minute break for technical reasons this morning which are too tedious to get into, but trust me that it was necessary in order to get online & post that last update. i was pleasantly surprised by how refreshing it was dive back in with earphones.
while walking my dog this morning, we went through a big open field, and it occurred to me that every single listen to this song is like a reincarnation, slightly different, but very much the same as the listens before it. then it occurred to me that every time i listen to any song, ever, it’s like a reincarnation—whatever the singer and/or songwriter intended the song to be, or whatever it means to them personally, it almost certainly will mean something else to its listener. maybe it’ll mean something similar, maybe it’ll be something the artist(s) never intended or foresaw. then it occurred to me that this was a very jack handey sort of “deep thought.” but i’m not here to judge thoughts today, just record them. this is for science.
it’s only towards the end of the song that it feels like the drums really start to kick in.
it’s really, really hard to avoid imposing meaning on this song knowing the history of it, and what ian curtis and his band went through around the time it was recorded. i’ve often heard it said that “ceremony” was atypically upbeat for a joy division song. i’ve intentionally avoided reading any lyrics thus far (that’ll come later), but it definitely feels like a weird tension between the music and “lyrics” (they’re barely audible on all existing joy division versions of this song). but it feels like ian’s bandmates wanted a more optimistic sound with this tune. and the mumbly words ian provides sounds like he’s trying his damnedest to give them vocals to match, but he just can’t do it. like his heart’s not totally in it. he’s trying, though. and the rest of the band feels like they’re pushing him (in a good way), urging him to be in a happier place. control seems to suggest that his band was pushing him in a decidedly un-good way, too, though. at one point, i think the ian voiceover even explicitly says he gives everything he’s got on-stage, but they want even more from him, more than he give.
it was pretty damn cold coming to work today. sky as clear & blue as i’ve seen in forever & a day. sun shining like bare lightbulb with no filter, bright as fuck. the cold was the kind where you can feel it on your skin, you can tell precisely where your hair ends and your unprotected body begins. that line couldn’t be clearer. and the sun, you can’t even look in it’s general direction without shades on. it feels good, but you can’t stand to face it for more than a few squinted seconds. this is probably the best metaphor for this song that i’ll come up with all day. i should quit while i’m ahead.
7:54am | approx. number of plays: maybe 35? (still all joy division)
weird—now the vocals seem to start in stasis, but then quickly grow into something else. and for most of the song it feels like ian isn’t being pushed to positivity by his band so much as he believes in it, and maybe has even surprised himself by believing in it. hell, i’m surprised to be hearing it. but there’s still a noticeable turn in the last chorus, and it ain’t toward the happy ending.
gotta break for a very important meeting. it’s business time.
9:02am | approx. number of plays: still 35
just plugged back in. during the meeting, that familiar guitar line would drift in&out of my head, but not often. like shouting into a huge canyon and having a faint echo bounce back some time later. but it felt good. strangely happy.
9:08am | approx. number of plays: 36
i feel like dancing. shame i’m at the office.
9:28am | approx. number of plays: 40
if i had a time machine, i’d go back & kiss ian curtis. not in a gay way. but like the russians do. russians do that, yeah? right on the lips? i may also be hopped up on caffeine, but this song is doing strange/unexpected things to my mental state. i was genuinely worried that the muffled vocals would be unbearably depressing. before i started, i had this image of ian drowning in a sea, half-heartedly trying to sing his way out of it. but that’s not how this is playing out. i have back-up/cover versions of “ceremony” ready to go on a moment’s notice, but i’m feeling good about sticking with joy division for the time being. i got another bizness meeting now, but it’s the last of the day. should be a pretty intense afternoon.
11:14am | approx. number of plays: 60
unfortunately, due to the necessity of earning a paycheck, i’ve had to turn down the volume in my earbuds & focus on work. so, for the last hour, “ceremony” has basically been nothing more than background noise. going to lunch now & gonna see if i can’t spice it up with renditions by other bands.
11:58am | approx. number of plays: 65
went to potbelly’s for a sandwich and started a rotation: joy division, galaxie 500, radiohead, and new order (in that order). normally, galaxie 500′s version is crystal clear by comparison. today, the din from my fellow diners made dean wareham no more audible than ian curtis, and essentially created the same effect as the joy division version. but the upswing at the end was still noticeably different from the original. while listening to galaxie 500 all day on sunday, i noticed a pattern, or at least a trademark, of their songs: they all sound revelatory. all their songs have that distinctive guitar noodling that avoids being “jammy,” but they also tend to blossom, too. like a crescendo you can see coming a mile away, but still feels exciting when it arrives. radiohead’s version was, in a word, the most urgent. everything from the pacing, to the vocal delivery, to even the mix (and it’s a live version, no less), all scream listen to me—right now. i still haven’t looked at lyrics yet, but in every version of the song, the line that always jumps out at me is “heaven knows, it’s got to be this time.” radiohead’s cover seems to embody that feeling most eloquently.
perhaps the fiction writer in me is always on the lookout for metaphors. the obvious one from the past hour would be me sitting by a sandwich shop’s 8′ tall front windows, with everyone walking around the loop seeing me as easily as i see them, but there’s no communication between us at all. i even stared a couple times to see if i got a reaction, but most people went about their way, some even with white earbuds plugged in just like me. the somewhat less obvious image: the potbelly’s singer. this particular chain frequently has singer-songwriter types sitting on a balcony above the dining area, strumming an acoustic guitar & singing cover songs. it felt like an insult to listen to an ipod today while he played & was largely ignored by the rest of the crowd, too. i felt like i was doing a disservice to both of us. i couldn’t even look him in the eye. it reminded me of the moment in control when ian’s wife confronts him about his affair, and ian just stared at the floor, silently, and taking a step back anytime his wife took a step toward him.
1:16pm | approx. number of plays: 80
back to white noise, friends. damn the man. and his need for me to do work. i’m putting this project on pause for now, but look forward to coming back later today with some lyrical assessment and head-to-head comparisons with the two(!) new order versions.
8:12pm | approx. number of plays: 100
so that break was longer than i wanted, which may well just screw this whole report when i submit it for peer review at an accredited science journal. but such are the demands of a modern man’s working life. to catch you up: i gave up on listening for the rest of the work day, and picked it up again on the commute home (about 3:20pm, bark time). on the train this morning i took the unusual step of wearing over-the-ear headphones, hoping that’d give me a better sonic experience than earbuds. but all that happened was me looking like a huge nerd on the L. so for the ride back tonight, i put earbuds back in (they’re better at blocking out ambient noise), and fucking cranked the volume. the train was pretty packed, and i think there might have been several announcements while the train waiting at various platforms, but i couldn’t hear a damn thing around me. joy division sounded great. but galaxie 500′s slow burn is the one that almost killed me; in that last minute or two, my head felt like it was going to explode, and all i could think was yes. i got a few more plays in before heading to a bar to meet up with friends before our volleyball game, but nothing earth-shattering happened. i just liked listening.
so it’s the end of the day now, and i’m finally getting around to looking at the “lyrics,” and this is what i’ve decided: no one has ever covered joy divison’s “ceremony.” ever. everyone that has ever played that song has either been new order, or a band covering new order. wikipedia says guitarist bernard sumner had to put a tape through a graphic equalizer to suss out the words. suffice it to say there’s some serious fucking dissonance between the lyrics posted on every site i could google and what i hear coming through my headphones right now. those lyrics match up to new order’s version (and galaxie 500′s and radiohead’s), but sometimes it doesn’t even sound remotely close to joy division’s. trouble is, if joy division’s guitarist couldn’t divine those words, then i sure as hell never will either. which is kinda great, actually. i watched control last night hoping for insight into ian curtis. what i learned was he was an epileptic who sometimes had seizures at shows. what i didn’t learn, and could never learn (let alone learn from a two hour film drama based on a book written by ian’s widow, who apparently didn’t even spend much time with him in his last weeks/months on this earth) is what was going through ian’s mind as he descended into an abyss from which he could not return. it’s only fitting that one of his final songs is every ounce as inscrutable as his undoing. i don’t think any amount of listening to ian’s “ceremony,” be it 100 times or 100,000 times, will ever give me the kind of epiphany that i held out hope was possible at the start of today. but that being said, i felt sparks of empathy with ian all day today: while listening to his song (or someone else trying their best to illuminate his song). while walking down an utterly quiet office hallway and seeing sunshine streaming in through a wall of windows, with intermittent (and maybe imaginary) flashes of light on top of that out of the corner of my eye. while walking through a field after dusk in the shadow of cathedral, and being unable to distinguish the sounds coming from my earbuds and the sounds coming the bell tower above me and the street in front of me. while listening to joy division for the first time in hours, and feeling so exhilarated that i could not help but do my best ian curtis dance, right there in the fucking shower. and that’s probably the most anyone could reasonably hope for.
end of transmission.
Tags: ceremony, galaxie 500, new order, Radiohead, The Joy Division
This is a really cool experiment, and so well reported. I’ve been waiting for the next update, and now worry that perhaps the eighty-first listen killed you.
i survived. just couldn’t focus on this thing like i wanted to this afternoon. i considered doing this over a saturday and just delaying the reporting, but i kinda hoped for some interaction in the comments section as i went, and i knew there was no chance of that happening over the weekend. so much for that.
so anyway, i guess i was a little disheartened when i got home from work. wound up heading to a bar instead of diving back into this. but i think it turned out okay. by which i mean: i didn’t totally ruin this song for myself going forward. i’ll be happy to hear it again tomorrow.
Dude. I have many thoughts on this experiment that I didn’t post. One, like Sam, I was slightly afraid this had killed you. Two, rereading this post makes me more nervous for your mental health than I was initially. Three, I am *shocked* that you say you’re still not tired of the song. I bet that a while from now, this is what you’ll associate the song with, and all the other associations you had with it will fade away. You’ll only think about that day you listened to it nonstop and wrote about it. Four, there’s a lot of cool writing happening in this post. Is this the only writing you’re doing? Five, in my post for Monday, I adopt a very Jason-esque voice that I think you’ll be mildly amused by. Keep an eye out.
it’s all good, my friend. 1) no death here. 2) i assure you my mental health’s been far worse before & yet here i still am. just been devoting a lot of headspace the last couple days to a dude that offed himself, that’s all. it actually feels like a good time to revisit my “novocaine” story. but i’m livin’. and anxious to tip pints with you at the end of the month. 3) did i mention i might have OCD tendencies? i might. but it’s still a killer song, and i certainly don’t dread hearing it again. i think it’ll be awesome, actually. just have to wait & see what happens with future associations, though. 4) thanks! and sorta/not really. been trying to wake up at 6am in the mornings & write fiction before work. sometimes i write, sometimes i sleep in. 5) CANNOT. FREAKIN’. WAIT.
Glad you are writing, dude. Looking forward to hearing you read soon.
Novocaine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Jason. I miss you. I enjoyed this post so much. Not because I have any idea of what artist or music you refer to (sorry) but because I, too, have a tendency to listen to certain songs over again, well past the point of social acceptance. It’s nice to know I’m not alone.
i miss you, too, friend. so make sure you’re around for get lit, when my sorry ass makes its way back to spoke.
and don’t worry about being oblivious to joy division. it’s mostly an old british band for sad/confused/young white boys. :) but they do also have some tunes that’ll make you shimmy.
Gotta love Joy Division.
the cathedral imagery & the way it blurs the internal/external worlds? gold.