Rainy Taxy

Last few weeks I have been ruminating on this here blog about men’s  stories, especially relationship narratives (not necessarily romantic in nature) and about self-perceived shortcomings that can be remodeled at will. Many posts are connected to song lyrics and all of them are things I think about when awake, and feel even when asleep. If you’re into this kind of tales go and see other posts with tag “On Relationships”.

And now, let’s continue.

Not all men’s relationship narratives are vanilla, like one would suspect from slew of fear centered stories in previous posts here. That’s because not all men are vanilla (what a boring world that would be).

Far away on the other end of the spectrum some men are rocky road… and they write entirely different stories. It is difficult and sometimes downright useless to try to differentiate between man and his narrator, between creator and character that speaks to the audience. One work of art is never enough to ponder upon where this line can be and sometimes a hundred are also too few. And then, some just keep on recreating same character in every story they write. It may also be that this one is not the creators' doppelganger or even kin, but this is a fact that speaks just as much information as creating a mirror image would.

However it might be I find this completely endearing - to see the consistency layout of some authors.

Like Britt Daniel.

This is a man with astonishing quantity of wonderful, fierce and full-blooded consistency in lyrics he writes for himself, even when playing in different projects with different people, and yet… consistency does not diminish quality of his work nor it makes his stories predictable. To return to the topic of relationship narratives consider this list (just an example, not opus overview):

Believing Is Art (Girls Can Tell, 2001)

Stay Don’t Go (Kill The Moonlight, 2002)

I Turn My Camera On (Gimme Fiction, 2005)

The Ghost Of You Lingers (Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, 2007)

Got Nuffin (Transference, 2010)

Flaggin’ A Ride (A Thing Called Divine Fits, 2012)

Rainy Taxi (They Want My Soul, 2014)

All of those stories speak of affection and intimacy in such a way it is clear there are no rose-colored glasses anywhere in the scene (note: “Things everybody should know / The end will come slow / And love breaks your heart” in Believing is art back when Daniel was 29 yo) but that does not mean that protagonist does not dive quite passionately into full-blown, not only engaging but also commitment based relationships  (like:” When I'm with you, all my brothers, oh, I feel like a king, It feels like I'm dreaming / When that blood goes rattling through my veins, My ears start to ring, I notice what matters /And I got nothing to lose but darkness and shadows, Got nothing to lose but bitterness and patterns” from Got Nuffin’). There is a noticeable pattern of growth and maturing of the storyteller, but fundamentally - nothing changes. He takes bitter with the sweet and builds as much on his weaknesses as he does on his strengths.

Now, in 2014. 43-year-old Spoon frontman writes stories like Rainy Taxy, cornucopia of emotion, unyielding and luscious stage set for one person to come to all conclusions without even contacting the other side:

You catch everything I never could
You believed when I gave up for good
And when you stand beside me, I could tell I was stronger than I've ever been
But if you're gone, you know you don't come back

That other person is always existing, important and yet the song has a particular feel of trial in absentia. I do not say this as an accusation but more as a familiar, thoroughly and intimately known chain of events that I have seen (myself do) and have felt unfold a million times. I cannot sincerely say I feel any blame or resentment toward this modus operandi, even acknowledging there may be better ways of resolving real-life situations. That being said, in my humble opinion, not many better ways of narrating those situations exist.

I came home last night, I had no good news
I came home last night, I had no good news
And you've been sleeping through the brightest flash of apocalyptic ruin
And if you leave, I'll never sing another tune

There is always this passion, this sex under a thin veil of what “gentleman does not reveal” and this is what I love most in his lyrics; this promise that intimacy present does not stream out of purely spiritual connection. Fuck spiritual connections if there is no butt cheek to grasp behind that spirituality.

Put on your red shoes, sing it to me, lover-girl
When you do, my love, I forget the world
And if you say "run," I may run with you
I've got nothing else, I've got nowhere else

After this orgasmic climax, this promise-turned-carnal-gratification (because this is what both the lyrics and music tell us) story goes on to reemerge in real life, life of pros and cons, of floods and ebbs happening inside people as well as between them.

As the sun goes fading in the west
There's an army east that's rising still
And when you stand beside me, I feel something stronger than I ever could
But if you leave, you better run away for good
Leave, you better run away for good
Leave, you better run, run, run
Leave, you better run away for good
Ooh, run, run, run away
Ooh, run, run, run, run, run

They Want My Soul has a lot of truly excellent songs with great lyrics but I love Rainy Taxi best because it contains this essence of “another flavor” relationship narratives. It is at the same time restrained and passionate, desperate and hopeful, guided by reason and by hormones and it does not turn away from either gentleness or violence of passion. I like that. I like to think that emotion and experience is valuable and that sometimes getting hurt is fair payback for getting emotion and experience. Not putting yourself in a position of vulnerability, of possibility to get hurt, means not putting yourself in a position to be rewarded either.

And I do love my rewards.