This post is a preview of something bigger and a larger project that I endeavor to do. Music plays such a huge role in my life, and I want to consider why. As a result, I am analysing my favourite albums, but in the process of doing so, I stumbled upon some quiet personal revelations and hard truths that dredge up deep vulnerability in myself and whatever it is that shapes my world view.
So here I am, to share that with you. This is analysis of but a single song and the profound hurt and healing that circle my mind each time I listen to it.
Incarnadine is the 12th song from the final album released by the band Nothingface. The name of that album was Skeletons. It was 2003. I have been listening to this song for something in excess of 20 years. As far as I am concerned, Skeletons is the Nothingface album. I will have a full analysis on it in the coming days, but for now...
My Copy of the album, my desk, and something to help me sleep.
I never formally looked up the meaning of the word that titles this song. This is... because I know what it means just by listening to it. A red, crimson rage. Simple, understated. And this is one of my favourite songs of all time. I will probably say that a lot as I go down the long, long list of albums that I love, and that I hope, you too - might one day experience, but this one is one of those songs. Follow along with the lyrics.
This song takes the energy that ends the last song, and amplifies it. It is one of the rare tracks that starts fast, and then brings in a gentle contrast as it stews and matures. It has thrashing guitars, and well, has references to the title of the prior song.
This isn't a concept album - but it is all interlinked. It flows well together when played in order, and when listened to with an intent to try and understand the tragic circumstance(s) that influenced the formation of the wall of sounds that this album presents to us.
A photograph of the insert from the CD case
I insist that you listen to this song. It unpacks so much of the undocumented, unrevealed, hidden trauma that I do not confess to anyone. Except for now. I relate to this so deeply. To go into my personal history for a few moments. I am an only child with an overbearing mother. Incessantly, in my childhood. "Are you alright?" - and I go back to the song "Murder is Masturbation" and say it with me - "I'm not alright, but I'm ok".
Even now, as an adult man, I am assaulted with questions of this nature daily. When my phone vibrates, it isn't a welcome message from a friend. It is mostly my mother, wanting to know - and I now quote a fucking lot of lines from the song, because I know that most people won't get this far, or read this deeply, but for those that do:
I search inside myself
To find a place, sometimes safe
And if I find that place
I can finally rest and stop asking about
The know
The how
The where
The reasons competing
The way
The why
The you
The why
The reasons believing
And I know the faith
The God
The waste
The lying it's breathing
And I know the face
The man
The hate
The anger it's seething
This doesn't take long. It's from 1:47 in the song through to about 2:25. It is calm. It is controlled. It is balanced. There's a slip on "seething". A pause. A breath. Then it collects itself again before continuing. Holding it all in. Barely.
The parasite
Behind my eyes
Controls my mind
And feeds on time
So I'll hide inside
And wait until it's over
"Over" is when Holt transitions from clean to angry vocals, and it is a moment of catharsis in the soundscape that is completely an unmistaken moment of release to a tension and conflict that has been building since the first track of the album.
There's a subtext of self-harm, self-sabotage, perhaps even suicide in this track's other lyrics. I won't reproduce them in their entirety. You can listen. You can read.
On a personal note : I have not wanted to die for a very long time. Certainly, in my adolescent years, and my time in awful, horrible situations where I saw no pathway to happiness in my early 20s, I had that desire.
That desire is now gone - and I am the happiest I have ever been as I write this - if a little vulnerable to the statements and confessions that I have made in the preceding sentences. There is something persistent and powerful from this album, and I really do wish, truly, that it was the closing track on the album, because it goes on after this, for just one more song, a demented encore: but this is not yet the time for that, and this isn't even the ending of it, but oh; there is certainly a sense of it:
Clean Lyrics:
It's just fine
And we'll be alright
While we can find
Our way to the endless light, yeah!
Screamed Lyrics:
And tonight it all turns black again
So you can hide inside your fucking mind
And cry because you're still alive
This... stems from a want for peace. To be left to the quiet dark, and to solitude, to contemplation. To know that people care, but without them constantly and forever bombarding with enquiries as to my well being. I can ask for help when I need it, but for so much of my life, particularly in the context of the aforementioned personal relationship - I'll only get the help when I don't actually need it.
The song goes on, and every time I hear it, I feel a combination of bliss, chaos, protest, and somehow - order. This song makes me feel utterly and bitterly alone, in stark contrast to my above paragraph and thoughts regarding wanting that solitude. It makes me long for balance between extremes. To have meaningful connection, and not a parable of a someone who cried Woolf(sic).
It is a tangled mess of wires and thoughts, that only I alone can untangle with age, and maturity.
