Will It Take Strength To Be Gentle & Kind? – The Smiths Project – Day X
Day X
Heading into this project my expectations for effect of any kind were high. Considering the amount of time I usually devote to a variety of music as vast in difference as my checkered past is in variety of fleeting directions, there appeared to be no possible way that I could remain unchanged if forced to listen to only one band for 30 days. I had not considered the rate of this transformation, whatever I expected it to be, but I doubted that it would happen as instantly as flipping past the title track from Meat is Murder. As I check in for my third ‘post to prove I’m alive,’ I’m dwelling on the permanency of the bubble that I have descended into and am wondering if this is what I was waiting for.
Is there anything you’d like to begin with to help isolate your particular mindset today?:
For whatever I had previously defined it as, normalcy has evaded me throughout this new year and considering my track record for random bouts of January malaise, I’m beginning to see this as a wonderful, wonderful thing. As much as Robert Pollard can try to convince me, I am no scientist and it shows. I had not designed a control for this experiment. Yes, I am limited by my inability to sprout multiple copies of myself ala Michael Keaton and yes, I do believe that if I tempered my Smiths listening with a regular listening diversity the results would be inauthentic but I still feel that the strangely exciting, patternless rhythm to my 2010 life may not be completely the result of my Smiths listening. Or, to consider the other Hand in Glove, perhaps it is.
How would you describe your desire to listen to the Smiths today?
As at this point in the month I’ve delved into all aspects of their catalog. I am now relatively confident that I can choose which Smiths records will best fit my needs. Today for example, I found myself seeking the bouncy pop of the first section of The World Won’t Listen to compliment my jovial early morning optimism but when the piles of paper requiring my attention dragged my spirits down, I sought out Meat is Murder, especially How Soon is Now?.
At this point of the month, how much of a Smiths expert do you feel you are?
I have more confidence in my skill at pointing out and accepting my short-comings than I do in any of my other personal qualities or quirks. Even so, I can admit with all depreciating bias tossed aside that I am in no way, even close to an expert. I may have an advanced knowledge of The Queen is Dead due to over exposure but I remain relatively ignorant of much of the Smiths history. This isn’t a slight against the Manchester men as I have left all my previous fervor for encyclopedic knowledge of any band with the pile of XL Alice In Chains T-shirts and other awkward 15 year old tendencies I’ve thankfully left in my wake. The most I can expect by month’s end is a better knowledge of each studio record and a sense of the Smiths evolution (which I’m turning the corner on).
Did any one song standout to you today as best capturing your mood?
As I am struggling to accept the durability of this strange feeling of optimism I am currently shrouded in, I’ve learned that I’m not the only one. Morrissey, I get it, there are questions even when things seem proper great. Still Ill may jump into negativity more quickly that even I will (I can just picture a topless, dreary Morrissey lying in bed calling after his previous night’s suitor as he / she dresses for the day, ‘And if you must, go to work – tomorrow / Well, if I were you I really wouldn’t bother’) but there is an undercurrent of hope, which I can see in the lines that follow: ‘For there are brighter sides to life / And I should know, because I’ve seen them / But not very often …’
Do you feel the Smiths affected your general mood today?
The concerted effort I made to not let the Smiths affect my mood today was mostly successful. Most of the bleakness of the lyrics went through one ear, tickled my dormant depression and escaped through the other. Today I loved Johnny Marr’s guitar layers. Big Mouth Strikes Again: inspiring even for an ignorant power chord junkie like myself.
On a scale of 1 to 10 Morrissey in Peaceful Ecstasy faces, with 1 being catatonically bed ridden and 10 being elated, how did your Smiths listening experience make you feel today?
Using what we have been blessed with, use Google Images to find a seemingly unrelated random picture to describe your over all mood after listening to the Smiths all day:
The Smiths Project – The Explanation
Trackbacks