NIN Oeuvre Blog: Only

Editor’s Note: This entry originally appeared on the blog Ten Thousand Lies on June 26, 2007.

It was at some point during the summer of 2005 that I asked my brother, the man responsible for introducing me to Nine Inch Nails in the first place, what he thought of the band’s new single, “Only.”

“It sounds like gay disco,” he told me.*

And you know what? He was right. I’ve come to think of it as something more like a gay square dance myself—try singing “Now bow to your partner! Now, do-si-do!” over the intro, and you’ll see what I mean—but the simple fact is that I agree with my brother. There’s something queer about “Only”. Where my brother and I part ways on this matter is in the fact that I see gay disco/square dance as a viable musical genre, and he does not.

“Only” is certainly the closest to a straight new-wave/dance song that Trent’s gotten since Pretty Hate Machine, and I, for one, welcomed the return when I first heard it. From the callback to “Down In It”—so that’s what happened after the tiniest little dot caught his eye—to the shouted chorus (which I imagined turning into two different narrative voices—Person A: “There is no you” and Person B: “There is only me”—in a remix I was envisioning after Trent released the GarageBand file to the song), there isn’t much I don’t like about “Only”. As I’ve stated before, I am huge fan of PHM-era NIN. But therein lies the problem with “Only.” I think this is a song that would be more at home on PHM than it is on the somewhat disjointed (although mostly satisfying) With Teeth.

Listen: I think my brother’s opinion of “Only” (and of “The Hand That Feeds,” which we wasn’t fond of either) is well-founded. There was something jarring about “THTF” and “Only” leading the charge for the new NIN after two albums worth of more sonically layered and lyrically deeper songs (The Downward Spiral and The Fragile). I think that, eventually, in looking back on the NIN catalog, “THTF” and “Only” may be viewed with same sense of scorn with which fans like my NIN-ouevreblogging colleague at This Machine is Obsolete view “Sanctified.” I can see a day when Trent refuses to play either track live—he’s certainly got enough other songs to play by this point—just as he appears to be patently against playing “Sanctified.” But I think that’ll be a shame, because both songs are good songs. They’re just songs out of time, and out of place.

* My brother had gay friends in high school, when that simply was not cool, and several of my best friends in college were gay. So please don’t get on me about this being a homophobic post. As Tom Cruise’s character in Jerry Maguire might say, if keeping a client depended on it, “I love gay people!” And that means I’m allowed to call things “gay.” Seriously. Go call PETA, and ask them. They’ll tell you so.

Or is that GLAAD you’re supposed to call? Damn, dude. I’m such a homo for not remembering.

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