NIN Oeuvre Blog: Every Day Is Exactly The Same
Editor’s Note: This entry originally appeared on the blog Ten Thousand Lies on June 8, 2007.
i believe i can see the future
because i repeat the same routine
i think i used to have a purpose
and then again that might have been a dream
“Every Day Is Exactly The Same” was the #1 song on the Billboard Modern Rock chart on the day that my daughter was born. When Kaylee asks what the #1 song was on the day she was born, which is bound to happen in our family, where discussions of such minutiae are commonplace, I will certainly not tell her that it was Ne-Yo’s “So Sick” (#1 on the Hot 100 that day), or James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” (#1 on the Top 40). No, I will definitely say that it was Nine Inch Nails. But talking about this song is always kind of awkward, because it’s a song that, from my perspective, is all about how meaningless life becomes when you settle down, or when you settle period (into a job, into a routine, et cetera). So I’ll tell her, and then I’ll ask her to pass the brocolli, hoping that we can not talk about what the song meant to me.
I’ve told many friends that With Teeth is not an album meant for the married with children subset of the NIN fanbase. Between “EDIETS” and “Right Where It Belongs” alone there is enough fodder to get the sad, insecure brain thinking very dark thoughts. And my brain is often sad, and almost always insecure.
i can feel their eyes are watching
in case i lose myself again
sometimes i think i’m happy here
sometimes i still pretend
i can’t remember how this all got started
but i can tell you - exactly - how it will end
Listen: It’s hard to listen to With Teeth all of the way through for a number of reasons. The most prominent of these is that it is an album of single songs, and not the kind of concept album (The Downward Spiral) or pseudo-concept album (The Fragile) that we’d become used to prior to its release. There are groups of two or three songs here and there which can be listened to back-to-back, but there’s always a filler song there to interrupt the flow ("The Collector” and “Sunspots” are the tracks that come immediately to mind). But the biggest reason that it’s hard for me to listen to it is because it seems to be suggesting to me that I am no longer meant to be listening to this, that I am too old, that I am too normal, that I have become the man, as it were, by becoming a husband and a parent, and that, therefore, I cannot understand (maybe the Fresh Prince was right about that one).
And that hurts, because this is my favorite band bar-none. And the idea that I am no longer fit to be part of the audience… that’s too much to bear.
Topics: Nine Inch Nails
Last Week on Lost: Cabin Fever
Teasing tonight’s episode for Entertainment Weekly’s Doc Jensen, Lost executive producer Damon Lindelof says, “Press conferences, funerals, and surprise parties.... Oh my!”
All of the teases that I’ve seen for this episode have been great, and I am huge fan of finales anyway, so this one will probably end up on my list of top ten favorites pretty darned quick.
In the meantime, here (below the fold) are some of my thoughts on last week’s episode, “Cabin Fever,” which was much cooler than I expected it to be, given the general suckiness of John Locke as a character this season.
NIN Oeuvre Blog: That’s What I Get
Editor’s Note: This entry originally appeared on the blog Ten Thousand Lies on June 6, 2007.
The lyrics of “That’s What I Get,” from Pretty Hate Machine, are a melodramatic, masochistic man-boy’s dream come true. How many times did I blast this track in my dorm room at Bradford, after some unrequited crush had turned me down? How many times did I croon along with Mister Reznor as he sang the bridge?
Why’s it come as a surprise
to think that I was so naive?
Maybe didn’t mean that much.
But it meant everything to me.
How many times? Quite a few, my friends. Quite a few.
To say that “That’s What I Get” became my anthem during the first two and a half years of my college experience would be an understatement. Still, to this day, I feel as a certain pull to that very simple, very direct one-line chorus.
That’s what I get!
Since high school, since a friend dragged me to auditions for a school play that weren’t really auditions at all (everyone who tried out got a part) and thereby got me hooked on the idea of performance, I have never really listened to songs in the way that I think you’re supposed to. A lot of my fellow oeuvreblogging comrades get into lyrical and musical analysis in their posts, and you can tell that they’ve really listened to the songs they’re writing about. Me, because I like to sing along to nearly everything I hear, I’m always more concerned with, “How does this lyric apply to my own life, to my own experience?” And, “How can I craft a convincing performance out of this, even if it’s for an audience of one (myself)?”
When I became obsessed with “That’s What I Get” in college, the tune summed up the recent years of my life very well. I sang with images of my first “serious” relationship in my mind:
Just when everything was making sense,
you took away all my self-confidence.
Now all that I’ve been hearing must be true.
I guess I’m not the only boy for you.
How perfectly did that sum up my first romantic experience? Well, I felt as if I had penned those lyrics myself, to be honest with you. And that’s why the song meant so much to me.
The second verse was even better. It was like a page torn straight out of the paper journal I was keeping at the time.
How could you turn me into this?
After you just taught me how to kiss...you.
I told you I’d never say goodbye.
Now I’m slipping on the tears you made me cry.
She had not only taught me how to kiss her; she had taught me how to kiss, period. She was my first kiss, and I probably did tell her that I’d never say goodbye (that’s what melodramatic high school kids do, right?). And then, within a week or two of saying that, “Yes,” she would be my girlfriend, and that “Yes,” she would go to the prom with me, she was off with some other guy.
I am a pop bubblegum whore, like most of the music listening public. I like songs that I can identify with, and that I can sing along with in my car, whether I have the voice to sing them or not. And “That’s What I Get” fits the bill about as perfectly as any song ever has.
Topics: Nine Inch Nails
More Sneak Peeks from “There’s No Place Like Home”
DarkUFO has three more video sneak peeks from this week’s episode of Lost, plus a text-based sneak peek courtesy of Kristen dos Santos.
I don’t know about you, but I’m getting more and more pumped for this episode every minute. I only hope that I finish covering the Apple Store opening fast enough to make the bus that will get me home in time to catch the show. I never thought one of my obsessions would stand in the way of another one, but it looks like that day might have finally arrived.
All I can say is that iTunes better have that episode available first-thing on Friday morning, or there’ll be hell to pay.
Topics: Apple, Lost
First Review of Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Ain’t It Cool News has one of the first reviews I’ve seen of Zack and Miri Make a Porno, the next film by Kevin Smith. There’s always a part of me that wonders if AICN reviewers are full of shit, but Kev wrote on his blog that there would be a screening this week in the midwest, and I’m going to go ahead and believe that “Snake Oiler” was one of the attendees.
The review praises the comedic bits of the film, but says that the romantic storyline just doesn’t deliver. That’s disappointing news, but, even if it is true (and these things are all in the eye of the beholder anyway), Snake Oiler is right when he/she says, “It’s not too late, though - he’s got plenty of months left.” The flick isn’t due out until Halloween, and I’m sure that Kevin will pull the thing together in time for the general release.