DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
The Talk of Creatures
HTML https://rzforum.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: RZ Project Talk
*****************************************************
#Post#: 458--------------------------------------------------
DEMONS DANCE ALONE (Project of the Week for the 11th of
September)
DIR By: moleshow
Date: September 11, 2017, 10:41 am
---------------------------------------------------------
and so it begins once more.
to get us back in the swing of things, here is an introduction
from CH for DDA.
--- Quote ---
> Demons Dance Alone is a 2002 concept album by The Residents
about the emotional effects of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
>
> The album is a tryptich, "Loss", "Denial", and "The Three
Metaphors". Preceding the tryptic is "Tongue", interspersed are
tracks without titles. In a tryptich, the central panel is,
generally, the largest. The "Tongue" of flame is symbolic in
Christian Iconography of the deity as spiritual inspiration.
>
> Demons Dance Alone is a 2002 concept album by The Residents
about the emotional effects of the 11th of September, 2001
attacks. For some Americans, even that subtle shift to European
Style date notation is an affront.
>
> It is sixteen years since the events. America seems to have
found no language that describes anything other than the raw
emotional impact of what happened. Anybody seeking to explain
without howling becomes demonised. Stockhausen is a case study.
>
> 'What has happened is - now you all have to turn your brains
around - the greatest work of art there has ever been. That
minds could achieve something in one act, which we in music
cannot even dream of, that people rehearse like crazy for ten
years, totally fanatically for one concert, and then die. This
is the greatest possible work of art in the entire cosmos.
Imagine what happened there. There are people who are so
concentrated on one performance, and then 5000 people are chased
into the Afterlife, in one moment. This I could not do. Compared
to this, we are nothing as composers... Imagine this, that I
could create a work of art now and you all were not only
surprised, but you would fall down immediately, you would be
dead and you would be reborn, because it is simply too insane.
Some artists also try to cross the boundaries of what could ever
be possible or imagined, to wake us up, to open another world
for us.'
> (Karlheinz Stockhausen, Hamburg, 16 September 2001).
>
>
> ".... The journalist in Hamburg completely ripped my
statements out of a context, which he had not recorded in its
entirety, to use it as a vile attack against my person and the
Hamburg Music Festival.
> This whole situation is regrettable and I am deeply sorry if
my remarks were misconstrued to offend the grieving families of
the brutal terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington
D.C. I will continue to keep the victims of this outrage in my
prayers." (Karlheinz Stockhausen, September 19, 2001)
>
> Stockhausen was pilloried and translations of his words do not
communicate exactly what he said. Hunting down different
translations serves to illuminate how different the world has
become since Stockhausen felt able to juggle metaphors. Like the
three ball cascade, the three metaphor conversation seems to be
unfashionable.
>
> Which makes any interpretation of Demons Dance Alone almost
impossible for an American Audience. The next President of the
USA will be elected by people who were not born. Their lives
will have been lived in the twin shadows of Denial and Loss.
There will never be a time when they were not living in the
tryptich. Every single sound, picture and word from that day has
become a metaphor and the Electors will be fed those metaphors
in return for votes.
>
> The Residents have provided a wunderkammer of emotion in
Demons Dance Alone. It is not selling or persuading or demanding
or even proposing anything.
>
> When Bob was asked whether he held his tongue because he was a
fool or for want of words, he replied "A fool cannot hold his
tongue". (Plutarch A.D.46 - A.D.c.120)
>
> The Residents are not foolish. A wonderkammer of emotion has
far more resilience and value to the serious historian than any
amount of demands for truth. As though truth were to be some
commodity purchased by weight from the Verity Chandler and
rushed home before the sell by date turns the words foul. The
Residents hold more than their tongue. They hold a key to
approaching the History of Emotional Experience.
>
> Demons Dance Alone.
>
> "I had hoped to fill my years with
> More than melancholy tears
> But the demon makes me dance alone."
--- End Quote ---
#Post#: 459--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (11th of September): DEMONS DANCE ALONE
DIR By: TheSleeper
Date: September 11, 2017, 12:44 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
I'll be honest - and this is probably part of The Residents'
intent as well - the 9/11 attacks never really come into my mind
when I put Demons Dance Alone on. It was clearly inspired by
those events, but I feel like it could apply to any other major
cause of grievance (not even necessarily a public event), and
still hold the same strength to it. I find tracks like "Make Me
Moo" and "Honey Bear" to be of a much wider relevance (case in
point, I find the WoW version of "Honey Bear" to be even
stronger in emotion).
But this is probably obvious enough to most people. That the
September 11 event didn't directly inspire DDA but simply opened
up an ocean of emotions that were simply waiting to be liberated
and targeted at anything that was big enough. I've noticed that
a lot of albums by other artists that were released around a
year after 9/11 manage to release emotion in a similar way to
DDA. Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Ween's GodWeenSatan: Live and
Quebec, etc.
But personally that event has nothing to do with my relationship
with DDA. It's not my favorite track from the album, but "Make
Me Moo" resonates with me with an intensity that probably
shouldn't be usual. The innocent lyrics, the adorable yet
worrysome melodies, its placement in the album, it's all very
emotional to me. Even the fact that they never play it in the
live show suggests just how heartfelt it is. They could never
replicate the feeling in that live setting. The will to just
give up. To live in a different world in which you don't have to
deal with these things. These childish desires never truly leave
us. None of the grievances and desires in these songs will ever
cease to be part of us.
Hell... even the album artwork seems almost like a personal
outrage. The image of a heart multiplied all over the canvas,
the closed fists raining from the air, all the severely
distorted portraits of the band members (my favorite is the one
with the glasses and witch-like nose), I think visually it's the
best Residents album.
I find it sad that it's so jarringly underrated. But it's like
C.H. said, Americans don't understand why The Residents aren't
trying to write another The Rising or why the singers aren't
howling (even though Randy's scream at the end of "Neediness" is
all the emotion you need). A shame, really. I feel like The
Residents were aware of that.
#Post#: 460--------------------------------------------------
Erratum
DIR By: CheerfulHypocrite
Date: September 11, 2017, 7:15 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
The words "subtle ****" should actually read "subtle shift".
Apologies if that caused confusion.
I suspect it was because I was writing faster than I ought to. I
suspect a lot of things between my brain and my fingertips. But
this time I suspect there was some software seeing excrement
where there was only a gear stick; or a capital letter.
I may have something more useful to say by t'end o' t'week.
#Post#: 461--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (11th of September): DEMONS DANCE ALONE
DIR By: moleshow
Date: September 12, 2017, 7:17 am
---------------------------------------------------------
fixed that typo. thanks for pointing it out.
#Post#: 464--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (11th of September): DEMONS DANCE ALONE
DIR By: CheerfulHypocrite
Date: September 17, 2017, 4:26 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote=Robert Graves Goodbye To All That]"Since 1916, the fear
of gas obsessed me: any unusual smell, even a sudden strong
smell of flowers in a garden, was enough to send me trembling.
And I could not face the sound of heavy shelling now. The noise
of a car backfiring would send me flat on my face, or running
for cover."[/quote]
Nobody is genuinely honest about their life. Autobiography is
the most polite lie. This is not an attempt to deprive Graves of
a legitimate acknowledgement of his experiences in The Great
War. Graves knew it as The Great War, since the Second World War
had not happened and reformulated his life in service of
History. Graves created an extensive mythographic body of work.
In the final decade of his life, his memory was dissipating:
[center]
memory was dissipating
HTML https://youtu.be/prRbTnX3dsw.
[/center]
He spoke confidently and with conviction about his experiences
with increasingly vast gaps in what he could say. Graves
approached silence from tragedy over a lifetime by simply going
on living. It was an aphasia of living.
Graves saw that War as being the change in Wars. In Good Bye To
All That he began to speak of War as the accumulation of
atrocities. He was not the last. For many people, of a certain
age and a certain place of birth the stammering of Derek Jacobi
delivering the words of Claudius were an introduction to Graves.
It was a production that was rumoured to be cursed with multiple
deaths in the real world. Graves was, it seems, stalked by an
unsatisfied Death.
Graves had been declared dead. His lung and thigh and head
injured from ordnance. His family had been told of his demise
and it was only later they read in the Press that he was alive.
Death was left unsatisfied by this, it seems, and stalked him
until his dying day. He spent his days writing. Influencing the
course of Modernism and generally not being given a Nobel Prize
because Ezra Pound was alive. Of the sixteen War Poets
commemorated on a slate stone on 11th November 1985, Graves was
the only one living. On 7th December 1985, there were no War
Poets left. Just a plaque which reads: "My subject is War, and
the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity."
As a biography of Graves, Demons Dance Alone is thoroughly
unreliable. While there are marvellously accurate references to
Cows in Make Me Moo, for example, there seems little reference
to real or metaphoric terror
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirry-cow.
Then, perhaps, all the
songs unfold into the half formed cries of Demons, all dancing.
Which, in Classical and Ancient Greece, was always a moment
where the Deities would do something that compromised the
mortal.
In Norse Mythology, Authumbla was a primeval cow:
[quote=Snorri Sturluson Prose Edda]
Then said Gangleri: "Where dwelt Ymir, or wherein did he find
sustenance?"
Hárr answered: "Straightway after the rime dripped, there sprang
from it the cow called Authumbla; four streams of milk ran from
her udders, and she nourished Ymir."
Then asked Gangleri: "Wherewithal was the cow nourished?"
Harr made answer:
"She licked the ice-blocks, which were salty;
and the first day that she licked the blocks, there came forth
from the blocks in the evening a man's hair;
the second day, a man's head;
the third day the whole man was there.
He is named Búri.
[/quote]
Demons Dance Alone is a parade of demons, all howling without
really saying why. They are supernatural beings and owe nobody
an explanation. Why would they: when explanations are given
there is nothing but discord. Why would the Residents ask more
of a demon than a dance. The danger, in summoning demons, is
that you ask too much and they do deliver. They are the Cows of
Pandemonium.
Like Robert Graves who seemed to be stalked by Death bearing a
grudge - and unable to collect on the deal - until almost fifty
wars later. The world becoming more and more capable of
delivering corpses to Death as a mass production. Death, it
seems has lost the nerve to simply swing the scythe:
[quote=Ghost Child]
She was neglected
But no one expected
She'd hold her breath for
Ever and ever
[/quote]
But not able to cull a single poet. Which is where the world
changed - some time between the glorious wars of "History" and
the vile atrocities of the present day. Which returns to a theme
of Pandora's Box that recurs in the work of the Residents: the
horrors are released and Hope is always, somehow, imprisoned.
Perhaps to dance alone. Imagine a world in which Hope is not the
cause of seeking a future which is desirable but simply opium
tea to allow the amnesiac passage from Wartime to Poets' Corner
without too much trouble. That World might find more in the
dancing of demons than in the platitudes of words.
Which is where Demons Dance Alone invariably leaves me:
contemplating why the howling emotions of one set of people is
heard while that of another is silence. As though sound, itself,
had become a Pandora's Box into which we lock the hopes of
everyone but ourselves. It is not some kind of diatribe against
America but against all those who would not listen to someone
else. Who reduce the entire world to watching the demon dance.
[quote=Make Me Moo]
Why can't I
be a cow
Anyhow
Cows
never
cry
[/quote]
Which is where I always seem to end up with Demons Dance Alone.
It is not there attempting to tell you what to think about the
world. It is telling you to feel. Which could be, if feelings
are genuine, far more difficult. Stoppering Pandora's vessel
could be far harder and far more devastating when the Box is
filled with emotions. The only emotion captured might not be
related to Hope at all. It might be a demon.
#Post#: 466--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (11th of September): DEMONS DANCE ALONE
DIR By: moleshow
Date: September 18, 2017, 1:36 am
---------------------------------------------------------
since DDA was my entry point into the RZ (around this time of
year, 2 years ago), it is really, really special to me. it does
this cool thing where it just makes me cry like a baby. the
track that made it all start to click into place was The Car
Thief. it was the live version- the slow sadness in Molly's
movements with that mask grabbed me by the heart and threw me
face first into the pavement. my entry track, though, was Baja.
that one took 2 tries over 2 years and man... it weirded me out.
red demon man (why is he red? and naked?), holding an eyeball
with a top hat (why an eyeball? why the hat? why is it
bleeding?), on a background of fists (???). but that confusion
drew me right on in.
while i am not fully capable of understanding a pre-9/11 world
(since i was mostly preoccupied with eating and sleeping at that
time), the album still manages to strike a chord with me. the
feeling of disconnected sorrow runs through every track,
manifesting in a different form for Loss, Denial and The Three
Metaphors.
Loss
all the tracks on this section are marked with a dreamy
pessimism, a hazy sense of futility. which is fitting for loss
as a concept.
Mr. Wonderful is all about "if"s. he does not actually think
that there is any hope for his life to get any better, despite
how little he expects. his life is at a dead end, but his
disappointment is curbed by the fantasy of a life that would be,
in his eyes, wonderful.
The Weatherman is more directly pessimistic, with a slow-ish
beat, strange guitar, and violin that sounds almost as if it is
crying. it sticks out to me as a sign to the listener that, no,
none of the album will be directly about 9/11 itself, but about
the feelings that came from it. this track calls to mind Inner
Space from Animal Lover which, considering the circumstances
under which these albums were made, sort of makes sense. the
lyrics here seem more helplessly tragic, though. the two share
the common point of referencing specific imagery.
--- Quote ---
> You're always calling me, but I'm never needed. I'm needy, I'm
needy, I'm needing a new home.
--- End Quote ---
Ghost Child strikes me as being a part of a 3-part story, told
in reverse. it is the end of the tale told with it, Mickey
Macaroni and Make Me Moo. the interpretation feels grim, but
fitting, to see this track as being told by a child trying to
navigate the afterlife, unable to move on. there is something
that has happened to her that she cannot move on from. (the fact
that the child is referred to as 'she' seems irrelevant to the
3-part story, since i am more focused on the position taken up,
and that position is simply 'child'.) the child is in a
purgatory of sorts, and since no harm can be done in it, no
healing can occur either. it is purgatory, it is nothingness and
the lived experience of it and its inescapable nature. it made
me very sad when i realized that when the Singing RZ's voice is
saying "She'd hold her breath for ever and ever", the child is
saying "I'd hold my breath for ever and ever". that
disconnection and helplessness is simply tragic. the observer
and the victim are incapable of interacting- though i wonder who
is who.
Caring is moody, but OH SO CATCHY. it, like The Weatherman,
calls to mind a track from AL, Mother No More. the story in this
one is really... i dunno, weird. this shows up in other tracks
on the album, where the story is sort of unclear but the feeling
is definitely there. this is a song about betrayal and
preoccupation. the narrator tells that story, and tells us that
those two aspects lead to an inevitable withdrawal into nothing.
things became "too much", maybe.
Honey Bear, in all its forms (specifically the WoW version), is
heartwrenching. right from the start.
--- Quote ---
> Tell... me... why... I... am... so... scared?
--- End Quote ---
AAAAAUGH. that one just stings. it's like they cranked up the
dismal outlook of Mr. Wonderful to 11. the need to be loved, to
be worth something again is powerful on this track. the
narrator- he was someone, and he has experienced Loss with such
clarity that it seems to have wrecked him. everything around him
needs to be fixed or rebuilt in some way, but his fear of
staying where he is and never being someone who is loved
withholds him from moving on. he will take anything he can get.
--- Quote ---
> Now I wait for you to gag and grease me. Now I hope you'll
hold me by the hair.
--- End Quote ---
The Car Thief. where do i even begin on this one. the narrator
(who, at this point, i will just call Ms. Wonderful), has
experienced Loss in her own way. it seems that she has escaped a
physically abusive relationship and experienced the loss of that
individual who had hoped to render her passive and weak, but
through her anger seems to have found relief from this in
destruction. the burning car being compared to a shooting star
is a particularly interesting image. setting it aflame contained
her wish. she is refusing to carry the burden of her pain any
longer. she may be bitter, but she knows she is not in the
wrong.
Neediness brings us the first mention of the Demon, though it is
present throughout the whole album. Mr. Wonderful, here, had
made the strange choice to attempt to embrace and befriend the
complicated being that is the Demon. staying in the cycle of
grief and all it entails is not a good thing, but he believes
that the Demon can be brought to the light and change, while
never having to leave! for its own good, at that. in reality, he
is begging the issue that got him in his current position to
help him to not have to leave it. the cycle has become so
familiar that he cannot imagine leaving it. he triggers his own
Loss- by convincing himself that the Demon (which he believes
can be known and can feel, act, and think as a person would) is
leaving him.
i hear the singing at the end in two ways- "We need someone who
needs someone," and "It's all gone wrong and it's all gone". the
latter is probably correct, but it makes for interesting
interpretations.
--- Quote ---
> We all need someone who needs us.
--- End Quote ---
that phrase, after the pained yelling of Mr. Wonderful sums up
the issues in Loss pretty nicely. for some, that someone is a
specific person. for others, it's anyone. or, it could be the
world as a whole.
Denial
the track that opens this section, Thundering Skies captures the
idea of this section really nicely: let's ignore the fact that
we have crossed the rubicon- the present and past are a
confusing mess of events that we cannot help but look away from!
nothing could possibly get worse, no.
Mickey Macaroni is the 2nd part of the story of the Child. at
this point, the Child is clearly unaware of the severity of
their situation. soon, the Child will go home and learn all that
was unknown before. the Child expresses an angry innocence-
Denial- about anything going on around them. they want whatever
will call to mind a sense of familiarity and safety before they
have to go "home".
Betty's Body is weirdly voyeuristic. Mr. Wonderful clearly longs
for Betty, but Loss haunts him. he longs more deeply for Mother.
his experience of Denial is that he does not face the fact that
he misses her deeply, and he denies himself the possibility of
Betty reciprocating his feelings- he cannot even imagine such a
thing. he is more than shy, he's lonely. Betty reminds him of
these feelings. so, he could never be her lover, or so he
thinks.
My Brother Paul is, in my eyes, one of the most
mainstream-sounding RZ tracks. ever. it has that vague storyline
aspect that Caring has. they both seem to detail an experience
of betrayal, but through different lenses. in this case, Mr.
Wonderful experiences Denial by refusing to acknowledge the fact
that, as far as i can tell, his brother was killed by someone he
trusted, for that person's (possibly financial) gain. and he is
being forced to accept that he has been betrayed.
Baja is silly skeleton island music and it threw me for a loop
when i first heard it because i couldn't tap my foot to it.
10/10
The Three Metaphors
one would logically wonder where Anger, Bargaining and
Depression lie in this album? well, here, i assume. they're all
out of order and they all contain traces of each other.
The Beekeeper's Daughter would appear to have the withdrawn
appearance of Depression. Ms. Wonderful focuses on the event
that has made her so, so upset- a situation that she seemed to
have been powerless in. the background has a chorus singing
"Run, Daddy, run"- this sounds to me like her internal monologue
as she reflects on it and possibly even relives it to no end.
she experiences Anger here by trying to shut out others and
bargaining by telling of how her father escaped his situation
with a song- not something that seems realistic.
--- Quote ---
> Leave me alone, I'm on the phone. I wish you'd only leave me
alone.
--- End Quote ---
she is not looking to work through what has happened. she wants
only to be left alone to experience it in her mind in the hopes
that she would be able to relieve herself of her sorrow.
Wolverines is a little bit more vague in nature, but still seems
like it could be Anger. the description of children having their
fingers bitten by seemingly harmless wolverine puppies evokes
images of Anger, for sure. the adult animals trying to protect
their young and failing due to those vulnerable members crying
out invokes psychological imagery of attempts to protect the
wounded self. but the wounded self, too, is not powerless or
harmless. But to cause harm to either of those is not justified.
through Anger, it may seem so. thus, Mr. Wonderful begs for
forgiveness- placing the blame on something or someone else- the
feeling, and by association- the Demon. and he experiences
Bargaining through this. the experience of Depression is sung by
the chorus:
--- Quote ---
> No one succeeds if they scatter their seeds where the wind and
the weeds are pleased.
--- End Quote ---
there is no hope, apparently, for the wolverines. they have done
just that- but so have the out of towners with their children.
Make Me Moo- here lies the beginning of the story of the Child,
for us. something has occurred and the Child is now trying to
find a way out of the hurt. that attempt, through wanting to be
a cow, is the Child's experience of Bargaining. the Anger and
Depression are harder to trace on this track- though the former
could hypothetically be found in the demanding tone of the
chorus of the track and the latter can be found here:
--- Quote ---
> My heart was broken, broken. Cows are so open, open.
--- End Quote ---
it seems as if things only get worse from here on out for the
Child.
Tongue
of course i would not neglect to mention Tongue. the story has a
cyclical nature- similar to the cycle of grief. the same wound
continues to be opened, allowed to heal, and reopened again.
Tongue attracts people that, in the end, seem to be destroyed by
his presence. despite this, he falls in love over and over, to
the point where he does not know what to do. he is powerless in
the face of the Demon- both his ability to attract and the
inevitable death of those who he draws in.
Demons Dance Alone
this final track fits comfortably as an end to Neediness- the
perception of the Demon as harmless, kind, almost sweet causing
a painful, humiliating downfall. grief does not just leave if
you play nice and treat it as a momentary experience- it seeps
into every nook and cranny. and through isolation and confusion,
it overstays its welcome. Mr. Wonderful tells of the
hopelessness of his situation. in ignoring the truth of who and
what the Demon is, it laid claim to his life. and so he dances
alone.
#Post#: 475--------------------------------------------------
Re: DEMONS DANCE ALONE (Project of the Week for the 11th of
September)
DIR By: moleshow
Date: September 29, 2017, 4:03 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
i lent the album to someone and she made some really interesting
points about it. she said that she interpreted Make Me Moo as
being spoken by the Elemental Cow, and that to have a child
singing for that role made an interesting statement in terms of
how we tend to view creators or powerful beings. we tend to see
them as wise, old men. she noted that this is visible, for
example, in Renaissance paintings of the Virgin Mary and baby
Jesus. they gave the child an adult's face. this was to
communicate his knowledge, his holiness- even as a baby, he is
wise. but to have the Elemental Cow be a child makes the
creation of the world and the happenings within it inherently
innocent. characterizing ultimate creation, the all-powerful as
innocent also makes a statement about art. children create art
removed from expectation, ideas of what makes art good or bad-
those sorts of things. they make art wholly true to themselves.
so i thought that was cool.
*****************************************************
Page 1 of 1