Two love songs
Joy Division's "Atmosphere" isn't even obviously a love song, but, like most things, it can become one when heard in the right state of mind, and lends itself more readily to this sort of assimilation than many songs would. I have heard it that way, at least. I was struck today by its difference from the Phil Collins hit "Against All Odds," which I was listening to not in its original version but covered by The Postal Service. Both songs are plausibly (obviously in the latter case) about the emotional turmoil of losing of a loved one (not by way of death). Both deal in the metaphor of walking away, and both singers (Ian Curtis and Ben Gibbard) issue commands--or perhaps more properly desperate entreaties--to the unspecified addressee of the song. Ian Curtis pleads with us, "Don't walk away in silence," while Gibbard asks, "How can I just let you walk away,/just let you leave without a trace?" and then demands, "Take a look at me now."
There is no question which is the better song, although the Postal Service's version of "Against All Odds" is certainly a beautiful and moving song. But after all, what makes Joy Division so great is not just the music, but the sense of hopelessness and all the futile passion that is channeled through it, and the tragic and nihilistic vision of the world that it creates.
But it is wrong to say that the Joy Division song is hopeless. Rather, it looks for hope in a different place. "Against All Odds" nominally recognizes the futility of the wish that the lost loved one might return. But it never reaches a point of accepting this. Indeed, the very title insists on the possibility of a return that is however improbable. And the rest of the song does not just hold out this vague hope, but attempts to cast the wished-for return even as necessary (morally, not metaphysically). "You're the only one who really knew me at all," is offered as the reason why the unnamed addressee must "take a look at me now." And the question, "How can I just let you walk away?" which already suggests that there there is a way that the singer could put a stop to it if he so desired, is rephrased in the next verse in a more accusatory tone.
Walking away from someone one loves does, indeed, require a hardened heart, but no one I know has the capacity to will an end to caring for someone (however much the will may be engaged in bringing it about in the first place). Thus the means available to the singer for bringing about the wished-for return--indeed, the means that is always the only means available for someone in his position--is guilt. The demand that his lover turn around and look at him has the aim of getting her (perhaps I should not assume the lover is female just because the singer is male, but I need to use a pronoun of some kind) to "turn around and see me cry," to see that where he was "there's just an empty space." It is not easy to harden one's heart against the obvious sufferings of people we love, especially if we caused those sufferings ourselves. The hope that the singer holds onto is that his lover's hardened heart will be broken by the perception of his own broken heart. It is a desire to break the heart of someone he loves, not out of anger or a desire for revenge, but because it is only possible way to effect a reconciliation.
And so the feeling embodied in and expressed by this song is very real; at any rate, it is quite familiar to some of us. But it seems to be a desire for something bad, as the only means to what seems to be a greater good. I have never accepted the moral principle that such ends justify their means.
The Joy Division song, on the other hand, although it expresses a wish for the same ultimate state of affairs, offers the equally unnamed addressee no particular reason not to walk away. What is more, the command (or suplication), "Don't walk away," which is repeated several times in the song, is accompanied on some of those occasions with the qualifier, "in silence," such that the appearance one is left with of the content of the singer's plea is not that he cannot bear for his love to walk away, but only that he cannot bear it in silence. Still, in the lines in which the "in silence" qualifier is added, there is a slight pause that reminds us that what he really cannot bear is the departure itself. But the revision that occurs with the subsequent addition is not inessential.
Instead, I think that what is expressed in the Joy Division song is just the need that the end that is symbolized by the act of walking away should not to be brought about without comment, and without any expression or acknowledgement of the very genuine heartbreak that it causes (perhaps on both sides). But what is suppressed just below the surface is the wish, which is nevertheless obvious, that the end not be brought about at all. This attempt at suppression is absolutely crucial, because it is this that constitutes, on the part of the singer, the acknowledgement that the departing lover is not to be held morally responsible for the heartbreak that her departure will cause, even without denying the emotional consequences that it will have.
Indeed, in the words,
I promised that "Atmosphere" was not a hopeless song. The place in which Curtis finds room for hope is in the possibility of a reconciliation brought about by the recognition of the feelings of guild and regret that are experienced by the one who walks away. If one can just acquire the right sympathetic feeling, one sees that "walking away" is not necessarily abandonment or deliberate forgetting. Something which is left behind can be "set down with due care" or even revisited, though revisiting necessarily brings with it different emotional content than what was once there. Indeed, revisiting may be ineliminably tragic and thus hard to bear for too long.
This may be a different sense of "hope," however. For the envisaged reconciliation is not a restoration of a past state of affairs, which is taken to be impossible. The longed-for return cannot be brought about in the way that the singer of both songs wishes for most desperately. It cannot be brought about because the only means of doing so is by exploiting rather than acknowledging and sympathetically sharing in the guilt of the one who walks away, and this very act renders impossible the respect and the sympathy that is essential to a satisfying human relationship. Instead, the hopefulness of the Joy Division song lies in the possibility of forging a new shared perception of the very state of affairs that it initially deplores--a perception of it as something tragic, something universal, and even something beautiful. This, of course, cannot be accomplished alone but requires the continued participation and a different sort of commitment from both parties. And it requires that the one who walks away does not do so in silence.
I think this is what happens when we have loved and lost, as in the old addage. Life loses some of its lustre, we lose some of our childish belief in the possibility of all things, but it no less sweet for all of that. The crucial thing is to see that it is not we who are abandoned (and to not abandon those we love, if we are coming at it from the other side), but to acquire a perspective from which what was lost can be seen for what it was, which, in the cases I have in mind, will have been something wonderful and good.
There is no question which is the better song, although the Postal Service's version of "Against All Odds" is certainly a beautiful and moving song. But after all, what makes Joy Division so great is not just the music, but the sense of hopelessness and all the futile passion that is channeled through it, and the tragic and nihilistic vision of the world that it creates.
But it is wrong to say that the Joy Division song is hopeless. Rather, it looks for hope in a different place. "Against All Odds" nominally recognizes the futility of the wish that the lost loved one might return. But it never reaches a point of accepting this. Indeed, the very title insists on the possibility of a return that is however improbable. And the rest of the song does not just hold out this vague hope, but attempts to cast the wished-for return even as necessary (morally, not metaphysically). "You're the only one who really knew me at all," is offered as the reason why the unnamed addressee must "take a look at me now." And the question, "How can I just let you walk away?" which already suggests that there there is a way that the singer could put a stop to it if he so desired, is rephrased in the next verse in a more accusatory tone.
How can you just walk away from me,Already the moral high ground has been claimed for the singer. It is he who has been faithful to the necessity implied by the aforementioned sharing, who takes his every breath for the nameless partner. Walking away is not just the operation of a heartless fate, it is a cruel betrayal.
when all I can do is watch you leave?
'Cause we shared the laughter and the pain,
and even shared the tears.
Walking away from someone one loves does, indeed, require a hardened heart, but no one I know has the capacity to will an end to caring for someone (however much the will may be engaged in bringing it about in the first place). Thus the means available to the singer for bringing about the wished-for return--indeed, the means that is always the only means available for someone in his position--is guilt. The demand that his lover turn around and look at him has the aim of getting her (perhaps I should not assume the lover is female just because the singer is male, but I need to use a pronoun of some kind) to "turn around and see me cry," to see that where he was "there's just an empty space." It is not easy to harden one's heart against the obvious sufferings of people we love, especially if we caused those sufferings ourselves. The hope that the singer holds onto is that his lover's hardened heart will be broken by the perception of his own broken heart. It is a desire to break the heart of someone he loves, not out of anger or a desire for revenge, but because it is only possible way to effect a reconciliation.
And so the feeling embodied in and expressed by this song is very real; at any rate, it is quite familiar to some of us. But it seems to be a desire for something bad, as the only means to what seems to be a greater good. I have never accepted the moral principle that such ends justify their means.
The Joy Division song, on the other hand, although it expresses a wish for the same ultimate state of affairs, offers the equally unnamed addressee no particular reason not to walk away. What is more, the command (or suplication), "Don't walk away," which is repeated several times in the song, is accompanied on some of those occasions with the qualifier, "in silence," such that the appearance one is left with of the content of the singer's plea is not that he cannot bear for his love to walk away, but only that he cannot bear it in silence. Still, in the lines in which the "in silence" qualifier is added, there is a slight pause that reminds us that what he really cannot bear is the departure itself. But the revision that occurs with the subsequent addition is not inessential.
Instead, I think that what is expressed in the Joy Division song is just the need that the end that is symbolized by the act of walking away should not to be brought about without comment, and without any expression or acknowledgement of the very genuine heartbreak that it causes (perhaps on both sides). But what is suppressed just below the surface is the wish, which is nevertheless obvious, that the end not be brought about at all. This attempt at suppression is absolutely crucial, because it is this that constitutes, on the part of the singer, the acknowledgement that the departing lover is not to be held morally responsible for the heartbreak that her departure will cause, even without denying the emotional consequences that it will have.
Indeed, in the words,
See the danger,I have heard an acknowledgement of the danger of expressing even this much, since, as noted above, it can be assumed that any departing lover will not be entirely insensitive to the plight of the one left behind. Still, the song acknowledges the necessity of some conflict of feeling in the verse,
always danger,
endless talking,
life rebuilding,
don't walk away.
Your confusion,The final verse speaks to the final, hopeful state that transcends the confrontation of heartbreak and guilt. One gets the feeling (I should use 'I' instead of 'one', since Joy Division's lyrics are so obscure that I am surely reading all of this into them rather than out of them) that Curtis settles in this verse into sympathy with even the abandoned buildings and places that he visits in the restlessness of grief.
my illusion,
worn like a mask of self-hate,
confronts and then dies.
Don't walk away.
Hunting by the river,I don't know about you, but I have certainly had feelings of sadness and regret and even wonder at finding, in some run-down part of Pittsburgh, an abandoned building or other forgotten place that surely once played host to the joys and sadnesses of someone's life. By finding a sympathetic place in one's heart for the lot of the abandoned in general, one can come to appreciate the even more deeply set feeling of loss that surely those who were once connected to the a place or a person feel on being reminded of it.
through the streets,
every corner abandoned too soon,
set down with due care.
Don't walk away in silence.
Don't walk away.
I promised that "Atmosphere" was not a hopeless song. The place in which Curtis finds room for hope is in the possibility of a reconciliation brought about by the recognition of the feelings of guild and regret that are experienced by the one who walks away. If one can just acquire the right sympathetic feeling, one sees that "walking away" is not necessarily abandonment or deliberate forgetting. Something which is left behind can be "set down with due care" or even revisited, though revisiting necessarily brings with it different emotional content than what was once there. Indeed, revisiting may be ineliminably tragic and thus hard to bear for too long.
This may be a different sense of "hope," however. For the envisaged reconciliation is not a restoration of a past state of affairs, which is taken to be impossible. The longed-for return cannot be brought about in the way that the singer of both songs wishes for most desperately. It cannot be brought about because the only means of doing so is by exploiting rather than acknowledging and sympathetically sharing in the guilt of the one who walks away, and this very act renders impossible the respect and the sympathy that is essential to a satisfying human relationship. Instead, the hopefulness of the Joy Division song lies in the possibility of forging a new shared perception of the very state of affairs that it initially deplores--a perception of it as something tragic, something universal, and even something beautiful. This, of course, cannot be accomplished alone but requires the continued participation and a different sort of commitment from both parties. And it requires that the one who walks away does not do so in silence.
I think this is what happens when we have loved and lost, as in the old addage. Life loses some of its lustre, we lose some of our childish belief in the possibility of all things, but it no less sweet for all of that. The crucial thing is to see that it is not we who are abandoned (and to not abandon those we love, if we are coming at it from the other side), but to acquire a perspective from which what was lost can be seen for what it was, which, in the cases I have in mind, will have been something wonderful and good.
posted by gregates at 11:01 PM
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