And now for something completely different...
One way to describe my little blog is that it’s basically me going ‘hey taste this, it’s terrible’ and once in a while going ‘no for real this one’s delicious.’ Doing the second now, partly to unwind from a low key fucked up day. (I summarized it on twitter, details here, it’s fine, just annoying home repair and work shit and I’m generally a little worse for the wear lately.)
Propagandhi has a new record coming out and my heart straight up sang on learning this. There’s one song out from it now, the title track, “At Peace.” It includes the lines “I am at peace these days, give or take a fit of blinding rage... I am at peace, though presently convulsed with grief.” Relatable, eh? If you don’t already know it, first listen to Bruce Cockburn’s “Lovers In A Dangerous Time” because “At Peace” nods to it (I learned tonight on social media). The Cockburn’s here and the Propagandhi’s here. I’m super biased but I think Propagandhi as lyricists have evolved into short form essayists of pretty astonishing power. I genuinely make sense of a fair bit of the world through their songs - not only through their songs but definitely in the mix and often an interpretive port of first call before I get to the fancier nerd shit like Marx and whatnot.
Part of what I love about the nod to Cockburn in “At Peace” is that it’s a band who makes music I love dearly, and not just as an enjoyable aesthetic experience cabined off from the rest of my life but as people who provide me with art through which I make sense of my experiences going “man now THIS here is some music that matters to me, this is part of how I make sense of my experiences.” Another part of what I love about the nod to the Cockburn is just that it’s a great song I never heard before and only checked out because they referenced it, that’s a nice sort of sharing.
On that, sharing, someone online (hmm, to some degree ‘online’ is sort of implied in ‘someone’ a lot of the time these days, eh? You ever think about that? No me neither. I’m trying to think less.) put me onto the second Steel Pulse record, Tribute to the Martyrs, the first track of which is “Unseen Guest,” the first line of which is simply “I survive” and later it adds “evil, what you gonna do?” It struck me very powerfully when I heard it. A message I can use, helps me be at peace despite the fits of blinding rage (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?). That also reminds me of Downpressor Man. If you don’t know Sinead O’Connor’s version, do yourself a favor sooner rather than later. The song’s calm confidence that one day we’ll get ours and they’ll get theirs, that too is a message I can use, helps me be at peace despite being presently convulsed with grief (IS THIS TOO SUBTLE PLEASE DO LET ME KNOW). But yeah, sharing good music that keeps me afloat, thanks everyone who does that, much appreciated!
The Steel Pulse record also has a song about George Jackson, which is pretty amazing - radical internationalism in a 1979 reggae record. I forget the exact phrasing now but I heard someone describe blues as form of distributed social intelligence made by people embattled by an oppressive society. Reggae’s that too. A lot else is as well, and not just music. Part of how we keep on keeping on. There’s that Brecht bit, that in the dark times there will be singing, about the dark times. I’m stupid about poems and shit but I feel like there’s a tension in the line between being in dark times and unable to see past them and yet there’s also something elevating in singing - we can’t see past the dark times but we can feel something, live something together that outstrips what we can currently consciously articulate.
I’ll be back at some point with more of my usual ‘taste this it’s terrible’ and meandering about Raymond Williams are whatever but for now I’m gonna go. Before I do, one last thought, that I know I’ve said a version of here: all this stuff is low culture and embarrassing as such and that embarrassment is a product of a fucked up society that marginalizes some art that speaks to people’s real concerns and treats other approved art as just a way to gain status and launder money. At the same time, when good art isn’t marginalized it can easily become part of the dominant culture’s barbarism, so the sweet spot is sort of just at the point of transition between embarrassing and not, maybe. Or maybe not, I dunno, I’m not an art understander, just a guy with big feelings, a great record collection, and a lot of Marx books. Anywho, keep on trucking, dear friends and gentle hearts!