Month: June 2009

Today’s theme is:

I am sorry to say that I don’t remember who sent me this image, but it’s just perfect. I was that emo kid sometimes (sadly, sometimes I still am. So much for being a grownup). Today it’s possible to do a cheerful post about All Things Emo because I’m not feeling like painting my room black and then crawling under the bed with my headphones turned up to 11. But I’ve had those days. Haven’t you?

I don’t do this music every day: I prefer my angst a little rougher and in full howl (can you say Nine Inch Nails? I knew you could). But today’s songs get into the part of me that still sometimes goes off into the corner to be a weepy emo kid; and that’s very useful for particular kinds of writing. Much of what I do is about big feelings, and often I use emo to encourage those feelings to come out and play.

Because big feelings aren’t nearly as sophisticated as we like to pretend when we put on our Grownup Boots. I know so many people who intellectualize their feelings, codify and categorize and parse them to their molecular levels, trace the psychology, and consider them “solved” because they have been explained. And meanwhile all those wild inconsistent inexplicable messy feelings are still running and tugging and clawing those rational brains, those controlled bodies, sometimes trashing the joint just because they can. Making us ecstatic, or bitter, crushed or gutted or overcome by any number of desires that roll over us like waves. Sometimes we are simply a big hungry mouth that just wants to be filled. And you want to explain that? Don’t talk to me about rational.

When I write, the irrational hungry space is where I often need to go. Music always helps me with that; it’s my native guide to the I-can’t-breathe-now misery of rejection; the adrenaline rush when someone you’re hot for looks right at you; the moment when we want to hurt someone bad because they don’t love us back, when they become a thing to be broken so that they can’t fuck with us anymore. And you know, at least so far, those things feel pretty much the same at 48 as they did at 14. I have more reference points: I can say oh, it’s you again, and sigh, and sit with it until it’s ready to move on. But recognizing it, knowing it inside out, never makes it stop coming back around.

So if you’re feeling like the big drama of big sad find-yourself-a-corner feelings, here’s a playlist for you.

“The Secret’s in the Telling” by Dashboard Confessional is iconic emo. I listened to this about seven million times when I was writing the middle eight of Dangerous Space, the sadness and rage between Mars and Duncan.

“Think Twice…” by Groove Armada is a song that caught me completely off guard when I first really listened to it — I was standing at the sink in our old house, washing dishes, and I began to cry. There was a window over the sink that faced directly into the kitchen window of the house next door, and I’m sure our neighbor thought I was experiencing some particular personal grief: and it was grief, but without a particular source. Just… well, I don’t know, that’s emo for you. Sometimes feeling just is.

“In a Lifetime” is from the Irish group Clannad. Beautiful stuff, and this song is my favorite of theirs for its passion and its edge of desperation; the wildness within us.

And then there is the spiritual mother of emo, Suzanne Vega, singing “Some Journey” in her delicate voice that gets right to the heart of the road not taken. Surely we’ve all met someone in our life about whom we’ve wondered What if?

Have a great weekend, with no sadness except the musical kind.

Edited to add: I’m sorry to say that I don’t have enough server space for all my audio, so most jukebox playlists become inactive after a few months. This is one. Very sorry. But the music is worth seeking out, it’s great!