We'll do a full unveiling of the results of my Spotify Wrapped experiment (results: inconclusive because they changed their fucking algorithm). The next few artists and/or songs I'll be writing about were featured prominently in my Most Played lists. Among the top artists - and standing out like a sore thumb - was My Chemical Romance. Well, of course, they were there. I still have a wide-eyed dream to follow them around on tour someday. And this song - "Desert Song" - has become a particular favorite of mine this past year. This has been a helluva fucking year. There are some good things - bought a house, got a promotion, spent lots of time with family. But interlaced, there's been a lot of not-so-great things - my mom was diagnosed and treated for cancer, my paternal grandfather died, and the promotion wasn't so much of a promotion as it was a punishment for being good at my job. I've been moving at breakneck speed since this year started and this holiday season has felt like a high-speed train derailment.
This song is about looking back at everything you've been through and still forging ahead with hope. When they started, the members of My Chemical Romance were going through it. Death, mental illness, addiction - it comes across in their music, but it was a dark road. And I know some people reading this may understand the feeling - wondering how you're still alive after everything, amazed you made it through life so far with the way you were living it. It's about how you carry on, even when it's hard to do.
The vocals on this track aren't pretty, but they fit the song well. Apparently, Gerard Way got wasted before recording it and tried to sing drunk. I think that's pretty obvious during certain parts, where the words get slurred together. In spite of its flaws, though, the emotion comes through and is what makes this song hit so hard. It's sad but there's parts that sound hopeful and wistful. The most hopeful lyric, to me, is "I can see you anytime in my head." It hints at just the right amount of delusion needed to get through a tough day. There's rumors that Way wrote it when he was suicidal and I can hear that. Sometimes, I lay on the floor of my bedroom, imagining the blood running out, this song playing in my head. The real thing isn't an option because 1) it scares me (as it should) and 2) I could never do that to my children. But still, when I'm pretending, the biggest emotion I feel is relief. That's when I realize I'm just really tired (you can hear that in the song, too), pick myself off the floor and go wash my face.
I saw a pithy Instagram quote recently that I've found comforting in these troubled times: "If you're going through Hell, keep going." Attributed to Winston Churchill, most likely trying to pacify the British public as they were being relentlessly bombed by the Nazis. It reminds me of something I wrote once - thoughts from a long-forgotten character who was trying to run from her Fate (or at least, her Fate as I had written it). She's trying to run away from some G-men types who were trying to take her away but she's stuck in her house. I'll summarize, because I don't remember exactly what I wrote, but....do me a favor, and fill in the details with the best writing you can imagine a 20-year-old putting down on paper.
Summary: A girl encounters suited goons on the threshold of her door. Her parents stand outside, useless, complicit. The only way out is in. She runs inside her house but there's nowhere to go. They follow her. She sees the staircase. The only way out is up. She runs up the staircase, but again, there's nowhere to go. She runs to her room and looks around frantically. Her eyes fall on the window. The only way out is death. She makes to jump out the window but the men get to her before she can. As they are frog-marching her out of her house, to a nondescript black SUV, her mind calms. The only way out is through.
What kind of story was I writing? It was a dystopian novel, about a girl (yes, a girl - she's a teenager when the story starts) who is taken to serve the whims of an authoritarian government. You know - typical early 2000s concerns. I want to say she overcomes and overthrows said tyrannical government, but I know teenaged girls who rebel in such environments usually end up dead. It's funny - all my characters now are considerably more grown, mid-to-late 20s. Maybe even early 30s. Not old, but not so naïve anymore. So how do they end up in the story? Why are they the main character and not someone smarter, younger, more full of life? They aren't the Chosen One, just the one that chose to be there, for better or worse. Moral of the story - choose to be the one that shows up, no matter how crazy the journey becomes.
Every once in a while lately, I'll feel this aching deep in my chest. And I know what it is. It's loneliness. Being the romantic I am, I like to imagine, as I look out my window over the desert, beyond the mountains, past the pecan trees shedding their leaves, there's someone out there listening to this song, feeling the same wretched ache. There's a yearning to be known embodied in this song. To be seen, to be heard. To not be forgotten. All the trials the band went through together, all the hardship and rejection one must face as an artist - whether it be music or writing or any other type of artistic expression - is summed up in one lyric. Will it ever come? This could be talking about death, but I think most people think of it in the context of the things they want most in their lives. Success, companionship, wealth. And in the depths of their despair, the doubt comes rolling in like a thunderstorm. Is it all worth it? It may not be, but in order to make it worth it, you have to go through these doldrums to come through the other side.
Sorry for the melancholic, discombobulated post right before Christmas. I've been going through a lot of feelings, mostly because I've been stressed out at work and at home. It doesn't really feel like Christmas to me this year - very similar to how I felt in 2020. It's just been one of those years that I'm a little shocked to see I've made it through. That we've made it through. (Congratulations, by the way.) I've heard similar sentiments from other people, from work and in my pole classes....2023 can fuck all the way off. Am I optimistic about 2024? Eh, not really, but there's reasons behind that which I'll go into at another time. Regardless, I hope you have a Merry Christmas!
Footnote: I highly recommend the latest episode of The Astrology Podcast. It's about Saturn in each of the signs and the music that comes out during each Saturn transit. Not surprisingly, a lot of emo music (including this song and the album it should've been on..."Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge") came out during Saturn in Cancer. Saturn in Cancer also had a lot of music inspired by mother figures, and it's interesting to note that the song that put MCR into the mainstream was "Helena," which was about Gerard and Mikey Way's grandmother. There is so much astrological and music goodness in this episode, so definitely check it out!
"Desert Song" Video
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