Tag: Pop

The Lullaby of Eternal Rediscovery of Existence and Identity

Being social animals, we compare our lives with the lives of the others, we create our baselines and set our targets based on what others have achieved and done in their lives. In our current times when the life expectancy is better than ever, when we have a better cover of social safety than ever, the primitive instinct of survival from natural predators has been replaced by the modern instinct of philosophical- ideological survival which is the ‘preservation of our identity’ – the idea of our own image. The realisation of the philosophical death of our being should come with the awareness that your idea of self, your consciousness was just created by your desires and after this philosophical death you are returning to the fundamental forces of what made them. The endless possibilities for your becoming are opened in this point. This is the true eternal existence – to get broken down into the fundamental blocks of being and be recreated again. Juliet Ivy in her song ‘We’re all eating each other’ beautifully brings the sense of life that is made up of eternal creations and destructions.

Juliet Ivy’s song “We’re all eating each other”

Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood

– T S Elliot

There exists a special category of songs which sound very jolly, full of life, giving the impression of the light hearted joy, calmness, relaxation everyone desires; on close inspection you end up realizing that the lyrics of that same song is so dark that one would question the mindset in which the song was written and composed. These songs are the songs to which people would dance happily due to its music but the moment lyrics of this songs is opened for discussion you will end up questioning your existence. It feels ironic.

There are many songs to name which fall in this category, I stumbled upon one such song by Juliet Ivy called “We’re all eating each other” from her album playpen.

The song is written by Lucas Sim and Juliet Ivy Ortiz.

playpen album by Juliet Ivy

The great thing about this song is the way its melodies try to befriend you. It’s so simple yet effective and the song’s rhythm is not continuously varying which creates an impression of safe and calm space of familiarity. 

What's the point of living without dying for an ego?
So we validate our fantasies to feel like we are special inside
You know we love to lie

I was literally shocked when I started digging into the lyrics. How could one simply state a brutal fact of life as if someone is asked to simply pass salt and pepper on dining table?

For me it creates an impression of life being so simple at its core yet we always choosing the complicated version to justify “our” way of life and “our” ways of truth. Juliet beautifully and very clearly puts this observation in few words of wisdom.

The life we are living, the identity we carry is all we have when everything is taken away from us. This identity is created and molded into a specific shape and size from the life experiences we have. They are mostly subjective and are created from inside. That is exactly why we are completely attached to our identity. This identity has two facets – the identity we truly know ourselves and the identity we project on people around us to show them who we are. Trust me both could be totally different. We are always trying to preserve our identity. This is what Juliet is calling the ego here.

In order to preserve our identity – our ego, we let go of the objective truths and accept certain illusions, fantasies. This is done to create a sense of security otherwise our mind would keep running everywhere in panic. We create some lies, ignore some painful truths to calm our mind down; no wonder they say ignorance is bliss.    

The biggest lie is the lie we tell ourselves in the distorted visions we have of ourselves, blocking out some sections, enhancing others. What remains are not the cold facts of life, but how we perceive them. That’s really who we are.

– Kirk Douglas

We like grabbing onto anything to feel like we're important
Not a moment that is shorter than a hiccup or a blink of an eye
You know we're scared of time

Here Juliet shows how the limited span of life brings in the urgency to justify our existence so that we will be satisfied with the feeling that we are special. But we chose to ignore the fact that the ideologies, things that we are clinging to justify our special-ness also have limited lifespan just like the lives we are living. Even though we want to live for hundreds of years, on the grand scale of creation we are not even a blink – not even blink of the blink!

This is more than enough to leave all those false things which we are trying to justify our life, our special-ness with. The moment we let go of the feeling that we are something superior than anything in the world is the moment we lose the fear of not existing. The loss of this fear of not existing would make one eternal. We don’t want to lose the identity we created when we became conscious of our existence. That is why dying without getting any recognition, remembrance is a painful idea for all of us. But that remembrance, those memories will fade away. This should humble everyone.    

The worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves. We live in denial of what we do, even what we think. We do this because we’re afraid.

We fear we will not find love, and when we find it we fear we’ll lose it. We fear that if we don’t have love, we will be unhappy.

– Richard Bach

But we're all gonna die
Decompose into daffodils and dandelions
The bees will use our flowers for whatever they like
Make the honey that our grand-kids will put inside their morning tea
It's the thing of life
We're all eating each other
The thing of life
Nobody lives forever
The thing of life

The urge to ‘consciously’ exist forever is the only lie we need to let go to become truly eternal, free. We are so attached to our so called “self-created identity” that we consider everything going against is as a potential threat to our existence – the existence which eventually will fade away into nothingness. It is way better to accept the finite-ness of life and be useful to each other rather than carrying that false sense of superiority, higher ego to justify our lies of life.

Juliet puts higher perspective to sooth our confusion of “conscious existence”. We are justifying our egos because we don’t want to die, we don’t want our identity to die, we don’t want our memories to die, we want to be remembered by people even when we are not existing in the world. The urge to preserve our conscious identity thereby our personality becomes the ultimate goal of life.

I am using ‘conscious’ word here to show that we are scared of losing the “I”, “Me” from our life because that is how we experience the life. We create the sense of existence from inside that is why sense of “I” is very important for our existence but if you closely observe the way things exist in the nature it is really difficult to pinpoint what makes that “I” – the “I”. Is it my brain? Or is it my body? is it my property? is it my super-car? is it my villa? is it my designation/ salary? is it my family? What exactly defines us?

You will get the answer once you accept that this thing that you have assigned your identity to – your existence to will not remain forever. When we say it will not remain forever it means that the combinations which created that existence. The existence would crumble down into nothingness.

Now here is an interesting part. We call the crumbles of nothingness “nothing” because they do not immediately affect, improve or help the existence we were trying to hold on to – our identity. We forget that it was the same set of some “nothings” which came together in a specific way to create “something” – this something became our existence.

Juliet beautifully brings in this perspective by saying that we will end up into flowers then into the honey that our future generation will put in their morning tea.

While we are trying to hold onto our special identity which is short lived, which would disappear in a blink we are forgetting the fact that the nothingness from which we were created is more eternal than the identity we are trying to maintain. This nothingness is the truth, its that something which is getting recycled all the time. On the other hand, we are in this constant battle to justify our falsely created, mortal identity.

We should understand that we are actually eternal but this false sense of ‘being’, this false sense of ‘conscious’ steals the real eternal existence. 

We don't know how to accept we're just a product of a chance
And less like gods but more like plants
Who can't stop making up reasons we're alive
(We're alive, we're alive, we're alive)
You know we love to deny
(To deny, to deny, to deny)

Juliet is again waging war with our falsely created sense of “special”. We intentionally highlight the facts that justify our superiority and ignore the facts which actually show that we might be the result of few overlapped coincidences. Even if we have not come out of chances and coincidences our existence is not that grand in the whole scheme of existence. On the level of creation, we are as close to plants than the powers which created all of us.

So we paint our face with intellect
Pretending we're not curious
Too busy, super serious
Don't have the time to do what we like
(What we like, what we like, what we like)
Baby look at the sky

In spite of knowing that we are insignificant, knowing that the creation is way bigger than what we are trying to justify ourselves, we are always in the race to prove our superiority. Why does that happen? Why are we always trying to justify our superiority with some lies while we call ourselves the smartest species? Why ‘we’ the smartest ones fail to recognize the objective truths of the world when we know that there is not meaning to chase everything all at once? Why we are always trying to win the race and justify our worth with something?

The reason is that we think our existence is limited, our time of remaining conscious of our being is limited.

We very well know that we will die someday, that is exactly why we try to justify every moment of our conscious existence to something, some idea, some object which we call our job, duty, faith, passion. We don’t want to die with the regret that we have nothing that will remain forever after we die. We are so wound up in justifying the life, memories after our death that we have invested our present into the pursuit of lies which are creating the illusion of our specialty.

Our heads are so engrossed down into the pursuit to create that false identity of worth-ness that we are unable to look up and appreciate the beauty around us, the reality around us.

The urge to lookout for the meaning of life and then assigning that meaning to something so superficial will eventually end into the pain and regret of not enjoying the time we had to its fullest, the moments we had to fullest. We are always trading the real awareness of “present” to gain the illusive comfort of safe “future”. That is how we justify meaning.

The real meaning of life should come with the understanding that whatever it may come next, one will never attach the sense of being to something which amplifies ego. Ego too will perish in the flow of time. The rejection of ego comes when one lets go of their sense of identity being special.       

'Cause we're all gonna die
Decompose into daffodils and dandelions
The bees will use our flowers for whatever they like
Make the honey that our grand-kids will put inside their morning tea
It's the thing of life
We're all just eating each other
The thing of life
Nobody lives forever
The thing of life
We're all just eating each other
The thing of life
Nobody lives forever
The thing of life

The rejection of ego will make you free, will show you what your real worth is. Even though you are not special – in the end, you are something of value when you synergize with others. Even though your conscious being is not eternal, the things which made your conscious being are eternal and that awareness should free you from all the urges to justify your identity, your specialty.

You are given a chance to experience the universe in the most sophisticated manner possible which many of the other species might not even have. What more could sooth your existential confusion! Once you realize that you are already made up of eternity, you will let go this mortal identity which you are always trying to preserve with some subjective perspective and lies. This is the real freedom and it requires innocence. Innocence is one of the basic indicators that the person has no ulterior motive to achieve something, it brings in the sense of acting on things without expecting anything in return. Please understand that innocence does not mean that the person should become a fool. Remaining innocent in spite of knowing everything is really hard, that is how you will know that you are not fooling yourselves. This song shows us that innocence. 

Conclusion

Juliet Ivy very beautifully brings the sense of life that is made up of eternal creations and destructions. We attach the meaning of our lives, the purpose of our lives to certain things while realizing that they too will perish in the flow of time – this is what would unsettle even the dumbest person. This feeling is also experienced by the highest specimen of humans. In order to come out of this unsettling fear of unjustified – worthless living, we take support from our surrounding. We selectively choose certain aspects that will create an illusion of safety and comfort. Being social animals, we compare our lives with the lives of the others, we create our baselines and set our targets based on what others have achieved and done in their lives.

You know what? Even after achieving such goals which we defined based on our surrounding we are not happy. Even after those material victories, we see that the happiness is short lived. So, we shift our goals to something which is immaterial, something which is spiritual. Something which we think is more eternal than the material things. We make certain ideologies the meaning of our lives. Religion is one of such examples.

René Girard – a French philosopher coined the concept of Mimetic theory where he tries to answer how we decide what to do and why to do. Mimesis roughly means imitation, trying to resemble. When we are stuck with no information or loads of information in either cases, we will be overwhelmed. The best way to come out of such conditions would be to see what others are doing around you. We set our standards based on the baselines of our surroundings. We create lies to justify these baselines and goals we want to achieve. Our ego is thus created to ensure that we maintain the sanity in the times of clueless-ness. It will prioritize survival of body in materialistic races and survival of its own sense of existence its identity in the spiritual races. In the end, both victories will fade away. (That also should not mean that one should not engage in the pursuit of certain victories. It should imply that the non-eternal nature of everything should humble the person.)

The most important point to understand is the ways in which everything great (also everything worse) will be broken down to their most fundamental building blocks. The idea is to not get attached with what you created which got destroyed.

In our current times when the life expectancy is better than ever, when we have a better cover of social safety than ever, the primitive instinct of survival from natural predators has been replaced by the recently created – modern instinct of philosophical – ideological survival which is the ‘preservation of our identity’ – the idea of our own image. (Social media is the booster for such way of life. It is also how the mimesis is happening strongly.) Philosophical death seems more painful than actual death. That is why in certain cases people gather courage to do self-harm. The best way to come out of such mentality is to question the very thing which brought this philosophical death; I know it is difficult to pick on the injury which already is painful to bear. The idea to work in such confusions is to notice one important behavior every one of us maintains when we define our life. We always strive to amplify things which bring happiness and ignore things which bring sadness. We define our life selectively on such choices in spite of knowing that both hold same potential to realize in actual life. This desire to selectively attach to certain aspect brings pain in life.

The moment we accept that there is no end to the cycles of creation and destruction (of both good and bad) we will see that we are nothing but a recycled versions of everything that is there in the existence.

The realization of the actual death of our body should come with the awareness that you are returning to materials which made you.

The realization of the philosophical death of our being should come with the awareness that your idea of self, your consciousness was just created by your desires and after this philosophical death you are returning to the fundamental forces of what made them and thereby what made you. The endless possibilities for your becoming are opened in this point. This is the true eternal existence – to get broken down into the fundamental blocks of being and be recreated again.

Juliet Ivy said all this in one simple sentence “We’re all eating each other.”  

The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.

― Carl Sagan

Mr. Toot by Ylvis – What makes an art and its creator successful?

Even though “the best” art creations in the world are better than the average creations as in they stand out of the rest creations thereby making them highlighted, it is also very difficult to point out or to predict what makes these things stand out. It is some sort of paradox. But that is what also reveals what an art really is. This paradox actually restores the uniqueness of every creation. That is why you can never know whether your creation is going to be popular or crash like hell before revealing it to the society.

What makes a certain piece of art – “the art”?

One simple activity; think of your favorite song. The song that gives satisfaction to your ears. Now think why is this song your favorite song? It is very normal that some people (and most of the people) will get confused when asked for a particular song – they will generally have a set of songs in their favorites list, some people are really particular about the genre, some people prefer the singers, some people prefer certain musical instruments, some people love the song because they loved the movie, the game that song was in, some people like that song because they love the fashion sense of the artist. In nutshell, there is no hard and fast formula to a popular, successful song or any art that we love.

Now ask this to yourself – what would happen if you found out the artist that created your favorite song, your favorite painting, your favorite movie, your favorite series, your favorite book is accused of certain misconduct, misbehavior or some unconventional, antisocial, inhuman behavior? Would you still like that song, that piece of an art, that creation?

The answer to this question is somewhat complicated but you know what they say – “it is the poetry and music which have the power to communicate complicated feeling in simple words and melodies.” I have a song to recommend which was exactly created (maybe) for answering this question on our preferences with any creative ventures and their symbols.         

The song is called Mr. Toot by the famous creator duo called Ylvis (“What does the Fox Say?” fame duo). The song is so underrated and hidden in the abyss of at least 8 years from its creation. One would think that people have forgotten this song and make question why a song of such timelessness has not received the recognition it deserves. The vibe this song gives at first is like a silly ballad one sings to make children happy but it has some of the best and simple lyrics, musical hooks and also an impeccable visual story.

Let’s begin and dissect. It’s a simple story told through a song – 

The song and the lyrics

An musical feast from Ylvis called “Mr. Toot” 

Come with me to Istanbul, 
Land of turbans, spice and carpets 
This is the tale of Mr. Toot, 
Legendary music man 
Up on the roof he played the Toot,
 No one could resist his rhythm 
Slave and Sultan side by side, 
Dancing dance of Mr. Toot 
What’s that sound? Is it him? 
Did you see a shadow moving? 
Everybody - Quiet, quiet,
 can you hear him? - Mr. Toot! 
Play it, Mr. Toot!

So the out storyteller takes us to Istanbul where a Toot player is very famous for his instrument. People adore him for his command on this musical instrument “Toot”. This Mr. toot is such a  skillful and creative person that his music tempts everyone in the area to dance on his music. It is the equalizer in the city because Slaves and Master dance shoulder to shoulder on his music. People encourage him to play his toot.

Ladies kissed him on the belly, 
Children dressed like him in school 
He ate caviar and jelly, 
Bought a modern swimming pool

Soon Mr. Toot became popular, ladies always appreciated him. He became idol in the area, children admired him. He started enjoying exotic foods and did some “pool parties”.

Yes, Mr. Toot got greedy, 
Wanted even better Toot 
Threw the Toot from highest tower, 
Bought a fancy MIDI Toot 
Then a poster in the city, 
Mr. Ibanez tonight Modern show with modern music, 
Smoke machine and laser light 
Play it, Mr. Toot!

With this popularity, Mr. Toot became more ambitious. He wished for more advanced instrument where he could create new music and please his audience. He made all the publicity in the city with new name, new branding, new visuals of smoke and lasers. People came to listen to this new version of Mr. Toot as Mr. Ibanez but when he started playing with his “Fancy” MIDI Toot, people disliked him. Nobody liked what he evolved into. Turns out people actually loved the old version of Mr. Toot!

That was the end of Mr. Toot, 
He was never to return 
Though you can kill the man, 
You can never kill the Toot 
Play it, Mr. Toot!

This is how the story of Mr. Toot (now greedy Mr. Toot) ends. From visuals of the song, you will see that someone from his admirers – a children in the city again picks the Toot and starts playing, people appreciate him. That is when we realize that it was the toot and not the toot player that people loved. So, play it Mr. Toot (the brand new Mr. Toot) People have assigned new king on the throne of their hearts now – that kid with Toot – the new Mr. Toot!

The background of the song

The sensational Ylvis bros

Ylvis is a duo of Norwegian brothers – Vegard and Bård Ylvisåker. They have very comedic presence in popular culture and are known for one of the weirdest but catchy song called “The Fox (What does the fox say?)” This “The Fox” song has such nonsensical lyrics and equally nonsensical music composition that one would really question their choices for a while but the same person will appreciate the “vibes” it creates. One cannot resist grooving to that song. Mr. Toot song’s musical composition is largely based on a song called Adir Adirim by Israeli music group Balkan Beat Box (BBB) with Victoria Hanna. Adir Adirim in simple words is the praise of the Lord Almighty (Link in references).

The song Mr. Toot adopts only the music from Adir Adirim and builds a story through its independent lyrics. When there is this moment of Mr. Toot experimenting with MIDI toot, the music gives some fantastic melody with improvisation which sounds good but, in the video, you will find that people disliked that improvised melody.

Toot world is derived from an actual musical instrument called Oud – one can call it the Arabic or Persian version of Lute.

the Oud

The hidden meanings

The song Mr. Toot may seem very simple while listening and an “ear candy” due to its catchy music but it is some sort of dark humor.

There could be multiple interpretations to this song and there is a reason to it.

  • First –

It is a story about how an artist suddenly becomes overconfident about his skills and under calculates the role of his/her followers in his overall success. The artist clearly forgets importance of the auxiliary supporters (in this case “the musical instrument toot”) in his journey to become a legend. You will find many real life examples in music industry or any art industry on this.

  • Second –

The other interpretation is about the labors of creating a piece of art. How risky is it? An artist has to always reinvent himself otherwise he/ she will become irrelevant in the time of change. This is extremely sensitive with the artist who are insanely famous. It is always unknown, ambiguous about the response of the public and their “die hard” followers to such reinvention. The artist misjudges what his target audience is expecting from him/her.

  • Third –

The artist clearly forgets his/her creative pursuit which was what his audience liked about him/her and indulges him/herself in distracting pleasures which actually do not contribute to his art in a constructive way

  • Fourth –

People don’t like the things they love to change drastically. The comfort that certain artist provides for certain art is what people actually love about it in totality. When an artist makes sudden creative change, people consider it no different that a betrayal or a personal attack

  • Fifth –

This one is actually the most distant interpretation but it deserves a mention here. When people realize that the artist whose creation they adore is actually a hollow person from inside or some commoner similar to a normal person among them (a person with no real talents) – do they reject that piece of art that he/ she created? That is where “boycott culture” or “cancel culture” comes in picture. We have many examples where artists, actors, creative people, production houses have behaved in a certain way to redefine the morality in the society. So, does that reduce the love we had for their creations? The answer is unsurprisingly unclear!

There is a reason why there are many interpretations to this song and why people will always have mixed opinions about their close to heart but immorally sourced/ created pieces of art. As if these are moral guilty pleasure for many of us.   

Experimental evidences from Sociology

One experiment was done by a Professor of Sociology from Princeton University – Prof. Matthew J. Salganik and his team on what make a popular creation “popular”? what makes a creative piece – “the creative masterpiece”? In this experiment, they created a website for downloading songs (exactly 48 songs from 18 bands) for some set of people (exactly 14,341 people). These songs were unknown to them, nobody had listened to them before. What they did next is that they created independent eight “worlds” in these groups where only specific information was provided to certain world while downloading the song.

The researchers point out in this study that the information from the “independent world” where no information regarding the songs and the bands where given would create a baseline reading about the quality of the song (Also songs are ordered randomly in this independent world). As nobody in this independent world knows – “what the band is?” or “what the song is?” They will have to actually listen to the songs and then rate it as good or bad. As the listeners of this specific independent world have rated the songs without any influence, this creates a good judgement about the quality of the song which is the baseline of the experiment.

Now researchers provided some preconception about the bands and the song for the other worlds. They included top chart lists, most downloaded lists, most popular bands list to other worlds, songs were ordered by downloads count. Then researchers asked the people to choose their favorite song. In some sense they influenced these people with some social opinions already established.

Upon comparing these top-charts from socially influenced worlds with the uninfluenced independent worlds researchers found out that social influence always plays important role in deciding the success of certain song, certain piece of art. In terms of popular arts, cultural markets –  our choices, preferences are always influenced by social influences. We are always driven by such choices of others while deciding the popularity of a creative piece.

Important thing to understand from this study is the randomness and unpredictability in determining the success of the song. When such social influences interfere, it becomes very difficult to find what made that certain song top in the charts. The opinion of every person is influenced by the last one which keeps on building. Researchers also comment here that it is not the inability or incompetence of judges that makes it difficult to find that “WOW!” factor in the popular song, it is the influence of surrounding society which randomizes their preferences.       

From this study one must also understand how important it becomes to create the story, the brand, the image for making anything popular and successful. How word of mouth can create an overnight success. No wonder the business of social media influencing and profession of influencers (aka Social Influenzas !!!) has became pivotal to built popularity.

It is also important to note that how the popular arts of certain era are actually the reflection of the social constructs of those times, which is fascinating on so many levels. Retro era’s, the 70s, the 80s, disco era are some best examples to prove this. Even in the history of art Renaissance Period – one notable revolutionary period reflects how society at that time was.

It also highlights the importance of popular arts as the cultural footprints in the history of humanity.

Philosophical implications of art and its creator

It is also important to understand that there were some popular pieces of art whose artists were famous for some really bad reasons. So, the moral question posed becomes important here – should society reject the popular art of a notorious artist? Can a great art be separated from its bad creator?

Plato in his famous book “the Republic” threw some light on the morality of the art. He argued that art is always influential; that is why it invokes certain feeling in people, it creates an imitation of reality which can be totally different from the reality sometimes. This makes the creation of art misleading to people and can inspire them in negative ways too.

Seneca – a philosopher known for stoicism clearly establishes that it is the out-coming influence this art creates which will decide whether it is good or bad independent of its creator. It is always the end effect, last influence of art (which is unpredictable due to the randomness generated from social influences)

Conclusion

Important thing here is that there are many factors, many ways in which an art can influence people. As it is really difficult to pinpoint the “WOW” factor of the popular art; it is equally difficult to predict what part of an art would trigger the social construct.

In other words, there is no correlation between the person who created the art and the art itself even though it was created from him/her. (I know it is paradoxical.)

It becomes very difficult to predict whether people will accept a song, a painting, a book, a creative piece made by a hardcore criminal with really dark history which could shake humanity to its core. Sometimes the art itself becomes so self-reliant, self-supportive after its creation that people detach its creator from it, sometimes the art is truly worthy of recognition but people “cancel” it due to the character of its creator. (Again, I know it sounds counterintuitive.)   

This is one of the very hard nuts to crack which can be supported by the sociological experiment done by Prof. Salganik.

Even though “the best” art creations in the world are better than the average creations as in they stand out of the rest creations thereby making them highlighted, it is also very difficult to point out or to predict what makes these things stand out. It is some sort of paradox. But that is what also reveals what an art really is. This paradox actually restores the uniqueness of every creation. That is why you can never know whether your creation is going to be popular or crash like hell before revealing it to the society.

These ideas also highlight how unique, recurring and non repetitive it is to create a true and remarkable piece of art. How difficult it is to create a true piece of art due to the inherent ambiguity of perception after its reveal! You can never know what good is going to get presented through your art in front of the world. That is also why a true artist needs to believe in his intents, his delivery and his style. This rediscovery, redefining of a person as an artist on personal level with society as a unit of human history to a new definition, new perception through such “special/ popular/ famous art” maybe is the purpose of the art.

References and further reading –

  1. Mr. Toot by Ylvis – Fandom
  2. Adir Adirim by Balkan Beat Box (feat. Victoria Hanna)
  3. Salganik, M.J., Dodds, P.S. and Watts, D.J., 2006. Experimental study of inequality and unpredictability in an artificial cultural market. science, 311(5762), pp.854-856.
  4. Epstein, Z., Groh, M., Dubey, A. and Pentland, A., 2021. Social influence leads to the formation of diverse local trends. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 5(CSCW2), pp.1-18. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Media Lab USA
  5. Plato’s The Republic

The Afterlife of Love

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”

– Aldous Huxley

Everyone carries their own treasure while being alive. Interestingly, this treasure is not filled with things, materialistic objects (and far from gold, diamonds, platinum) rather this treasure contains the feelings which you think are totally exclusive. These are the feelings and experiences which you think that they belong only to you. You don’t want anybody or everybody to discover it. These emotions are mostly attached to some ideas, moments, anecdotes, stories, especially songs. Every one of us has their own favorite song which they don’t want others to discover. I have seen in some cases we feel betrayed when we come to know that the same song is liked by someone you adore, someone who is your friend. Such is the possession we have with some intangible things and the emotions attached to it. The only thing to understand is that same things can invoke similar feeling in many people and it is only a matter of time when you or others become aware about them.

Today, we will be diving into one such song which is so underappreciated as if it seems like everyone had already planned to hide it away from the world only because of the selfish love for the feelings it creates in their minds. Maybe someone will be discovering it the first time. This is my interpretation of the song, maybe somebody will have different opinion.

So here we go!

IF I LEFT THE WORLD- The Song

Song Credits:

Song by GRYFFIN FEATURING MARINA & MODEL CHILD

Songwriters: Thomas Andrew Searle Barnes / Benjamin Alexander Kohn / Peter Kelleher / Marina Lambrini Diamandis / Danny Parker / Daniel Griffith / A. Govere

If I Left The World lyrics © Primadonna Girl Limited, Danny Clementine Music, Big Deal Beats, Zim Croc Music, Songs Of Universal Inc., Jams Of Big Family, Songs By Gryffin

The Search and The Care

See a million faces
Sliding down below
Awful lot of strangers
Only one I’m lookin’ for
It’s lonely in this cabin
God, I wanna know
Are you with somebody else
Who’d never let you go?

The visual we get here is that someone is searching for a person from above (possibly heaven!). The strangers seem to be awful to him indicating the urgency of finding his exact person (supposedly the woman he loves which becomes clear in upcoming lines of the song, but the interpretation can be used for the opposite gender too). The search going down below and questioning to the God indicates that the lover has physically died and left the world, has left his love behind alone in the world. The only thing he now desires for her is to have someone near her to endure or forget the pain of his loss. To get over it. Someone who will be with her forever.

The Haunting Loneliness

See, man is a social animal. Our personality is the outcome of how we handle the people around us and how they handle us; this influence upon us is both direct and indirect. That is the same reason for which we have parent/s, guardian/s, relative/s, friend/s, lover/s, partner/s, acquaintance/s. Human babies themselves are very weak when they are born compared to other animals in nature. A new born baby cannot survive by itself if left alone.

We come alone and go alone- but the time we spend while we are alive, we seek someone to be with us and that I think is the irony of life. The “loneliness in the cabin” projects the same emotion.

In short, loneliness is the last worst emotion most of we want in life. (Though the tolerance with loneliness is varying in varying persons, some exceptions compensate their loneliness with other things, emotions instead of persons- like hobbies, meditation etc. and even a diversion)

The Selfless Love

Three emotions are expressed in this starting part of the song which are:

  1. the feeling of loss and death
  2. the feeling of loneliness
  3. the endlessness and eternal nature of love

The urge of our lover to have a new companion with his love to go through her remaining life shows the eternal nature of love he has for her. Even death cannot separate the feelings, love and care he has for her. (Quick doubt- what happens to our feelings when we die?) He knows that she will miss him, it will make her feel lonesome and hence wishes that she will have someone to move ahead in life.

Even though our lover is completely detached from the living world (being dead), the invisible string of his love for her wants to make sure that she will have proper companion to endure the pain of his loss.

The Flights of Poetry and Love

I want another life in
A brand new galaxy where
There ain’t no sense of time and
There ain’t no gravity

As obvious as the lines say, our lover wants to have a new life with his love in a world where there are no limitations, boundaries.

Love is the only emotion which can invoke such desire of starting the life with all new living conditions. Poetry becomes the tool of this love to convey such strong emotions!

The concept of “brand new galaxy” (not even new country or new world!) highlights the strong feeling of meting again, starting over again. (Everybody knows how difficult it is to create even a single new cell, single new molecule from scratch but we will allow the poetic freedom especially added concession in terms of love in this case!!!) Anyways, jokes aside.

The world where time is not present shows that the feeling is desired to be eternal, the desire for the lack of gravity, weightlessness shows that the lover want to be free from all obligations, “weight” of expectations, responsibilities just to love her. I think the ideas of new galaxy with timelessness, weightlessness (no gravity) is what communicates the universal nature of love. These lines clearly show that love is beyond the forces that bind our existence in the universe. The lover has this feeling that the practical, non-ideal, restricted, logical nature of reality will always overshadow the ideal, infinite nature of his love. Hence, our lover wishes for such reality only to meet his lover again, only to love her which are highlighted by the feelings of eternity and weightlessness. 

The Regret

If I left the world
Would anybody miss me while I
Look down on this city thinkin’
Should have loved you more?
And maybe you’d be with me, darling
If I hadn’t gone and left the world

Our lover is worried about who will remember him after his death. He further expresses his failure to love her more. This is the only regret that he is having hence contemplates what could have been the situation if he was alive. The care for her loneliness and melancholy induced due to his helplessness against the reality to love her is highlighted here. Our lover imagining the future possibilities if he had been with his love shows his deep sense of loss. The sadness of not being able to love her is stronger than the sadness of his own death.

Even though life and death are not controllable by humans, our lover considers that this is his failure to leave his love alone when dying.

The longing for escape

Been a lot of places
And none of them were home
Always told myself that I’d be
Better off alone
Float up from my body
Been longing for the moon
Look her in the eye and tell her
I’ma see you soon

Imagine that some immaterial form (like floating soul) of our lover is regretting and feeling bad where his love comes to console him and expresses what she is feeling after his loss. The voice of a lady make that clear while listening.

After he left, she has tried to make amends with the reality and tried to adjust with the absence of her love. But, the irreplaceable nature of his company has convinced her to go solo. This expression highlights the importance of his existence in her life. The vacuum created by his death makes her to leave the reality, her mortal form in a hope that she will meet him in the afterlife. Important to note here is that she does not want to die like a helpless person who embraces death due to loneliness rather she expects her soul to console her body that they will meet again. (Indirectly, she won’t harms herself for his loss projecting her sanity and maturity)

The idea of soul leaving the body in the search for her lover and promising to return again is such a strong emotion which was possible only through sheer poetry! The healthy mentality, the healthy nature of the love between our lovers is what is conveyed in these lines.

This also highlights that this love was not about physicality or him being physically with her rather it was about the feelings and the emotions with him, hence the reason she is ready to remain alone and with longing for the moon- the symbol of love, his love.

I want another life in
A brand new galaxy where
There ain’t no sense of time and
There ain’t no gravity

If I left the world
Would anybody miss me while I
Look down on this city thinkin’
Should have loved you more?
And maybe you’d be with me, darling
If I hadn’t gone and left the world

The Silver Lining of Reciprocity

She also desires to start new life in brand new galaxy which resonates with her lover.

This is her consoling him on a level so that our lover will not feel guilty of leaving his love alone in the world as if he didn’t care for her. The same expectations expressed by her in the ending lines of the song show that as if she is telling him that even I would have felt similar if I had died and had left you alone behind in the world.

We feel sorry for the loss of her loved one in the song which summons the flood of melancholy (and the music adds more to it) but there is this feeling of great relief when we understand that she too reciprocates and consoles our lover for his unnecessary guilt, which is what makes us realize that their love has actually crossed the boundaries of reality, materialism from the world.

We leave the song on the note of understanding that sharing of similar feelings, the reciprocity of emotions has tied their love beyond the limits of reality.

The most important aspect of this song is the musical composition by Gryffin, the melancholy of Marina’s voice and Model Child’s voice with her makes the song full of honest and pure emotions.

This is the song about the nature of love we expect while being in the world with that special one whose absence will literally bring the feeling of loneliness and longing. But the song also points out that the love we always long for is not that materialistic, physical in reality. It is only the influence of reality which makes us to believe that the love needs some media to experience. The song further proceeds to question the immaterial nature of love and its interaction with material world and the escapement required for love from the materialistic aspects of life.    

(And even though the song has a male and a female voice generally highlighting two lovers of same age group; The song can convey same emotions for other love relationships too.)  

Bonus: Thanks to the existence of Gryffin in our generation, there is also an Orchestral Version of the Song, (This is like real roller coaster of emotions)

References:

Aldous Huxley Image Source from Wikipedia

Featured Image of Heart Nebula captured by Rick Wiggins, Heart Nebula, IC1805