|
|
The Word According to Matt Johnson and Jean-Jacques Rousseau |
 |
|
|
When The The came out with the album Dusk they had created a confused, suicidal and obsessive masterpiece. Like you perceive a person as both the spiritual and the physical so an album is seen as the spiritual and the melodic. Dusk gets it just right. The most famous song on the album is Slow Emotion Replay, a classic with lots of soulful harmonica. The whole feel of the song is one of looking at your life and feeling nothing but irony cos it's been so awful. The lyrics put feelings beautifully into words. All about challenging your belief in the existence of God... The less I know About all those things I thought were wrong or right or carved in stone So don't ask me about Life, religion or God Love, sex or death Because Everybody knows what's going wrong with the world But I don't even know what's going on in myself You've gotta work out your own salvation With no explanation....... Ahhh! Brilliant! Just brilliant. A lot of the songs in Dusk have that Jack Killian mid-night radio in New York type feel with brass and all that. The album contains songs of depression that any depressive would find uplifting due to the consolation that there's someone else who understands. There's confusion, desolation, crying and hopelessness. Matt Johnson's lyrics are creating desires impossible to fulfill. Here are some of the lyrics from Helpline Operator....
To tell them what they want to hear Everybody's looking for true love To help them feel what they cannot feel True Happiness This Way Lies a short little number contains pure genius... Baby! I've got my sights set on you, I've got my sight set on you And someday, someday, someday, you'll come my way But when you put your arms around me I'll be looking over your shoulder for something new Cause I aint ever found peace upon the breast of a girl I aint never found peace with the religion of the world I aint never found peace at the bottom of a glass Sometimes it seems the more I ask for the less I receive Matt Johnson is your Adult Orientated Rockers version of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau the French philosopher made the point that man creates most of his own unhappiness. And by this he didn't mean the likes of war. Part of man's self-destructive nature is to build up desires in his mind for things he hasn't got. Desires which when obtained will make that person unbelievably whole and happy. But as Johnson says in True Happiness This Way Lies
That is possessed your body and your soul Through the night and through the day Until you finally get it! And then you realise that it wasn't what you wanted after all And then those self same sickly thoughts go now go and attach themselves , to something or somebody...new! Take a leaf out of Johnson and Rousseau's book. Forget about all these things that other people are telling you you have to be. Sexy, attractive, married, successful, heterosexual, owner of expensive cars, famous. Happiness is obtainable but it lies in yourself. Rousseau believed that happiness could be reached in self-contemplation. Where you think about yourself, what you want to be, yourself! But what is yourself? To find out you have to decide and it shouldn't involve trying to impress others. You must impress yourself. If you are really going to be happy with yourself it wont matter what anyone thinks of you. If you want you to like you and be happy you must decide for yourself how you want to live life. The only kind of real happiness is when you love yourself, you have your own values and you can live by them. Forget all this world crap, forget having a successful career, forget the cars. Forget it all and concentrate on yourself. It's easy to say but it's also true as Johnson said...
Hearts desires are the only way to misery. You make your own unhappiness in trying to obtain the 'unobtainable' because if and when you get it you realise it was an illusion and that you never wanted it anyway.
Relevant Links
|
 |
|
|