Find a song that sums up what you think it means to be a writer and post the lyrics on your blog and why you've chosen it. NB: It doesn't have to be your favourite song, it just has to express how you feel about writing and/or being a writer. It can be literal, metaphorical, about a particular form or aspect of writing - whatever you want. Then tag 5 others to do the same.
Well this will be NSFW, but I have to go there. NIN. Trent Reznor. The dark auteur of industrial excellence. A song not surprisingly from his The Downward Spiral release, 'Closer'.
Closer
you let me violate you
you let me desecrate you
you let me penetrate you
you let me complicate you
help me
i broke apart my insides
help me
i've got no soul to sell
help me
the only thing that works for me
help me get away from myself
i want to fuck you like an animal
i want to feel you from the inside
i want to fuck you like an animal
my whole existence is flawed
you get me closer to god
you can have my isolation
you can have the hate that it brings
you can have my absence of faith
you can have my everything
help me
you tear down my reason
help me
it's your sex i can smell
help me
you make me perfect
help me become somebody else
i want to fuck you like an animal
i want to feel you from the inside
i want to fuck you like an animal
my whole existence is flawed
you get me closer to god
all through every forest
above the trees
within my stomach
scraped off my knees
i drink the honey
inside your hive
you are the reason
i stay alive
Reznor’s 1994 album The Downward Spiral told the story of one man’s descent to near self-destruction. He describes this album as having “a brutality and an iciness that is a way to prevent you from getting inside. It’s an armor.” This reflection on the artist and the album from BlogCritics Jaime Nichols is well worth reading, and I liked this bit:
By the end of the last song, on The Downward Spiral, one had the unmistakable sense of teetering on the brink of the nihilist void with Reznor's narrative "i", now reduced to a stripped down, elemental consciousness that had eviscerated itself of moral and emotional certainty, but whose mind was still terrifyingly and unflinchingly engaged. It was a dreadful prospect, but one which felt like a kind of extreme, if uneasy, virtue.
'Closer', with all its ferocious intensity, was the highpoint of The Downward Spiral. And for me it's less a song about raw uninhibited sex, and more about achieving purity through sin, freedom through expression, unbridled passion through purging. Letting it all out and holding nothing back, as painful and soul-baring as it will be, can allow for 'pure' creativity. Giving yourself wholly and completely will make it an experience unlike any other...usually resulting in what we call 'writing in the zone'.
You are the reason I stay alive....that more or less says to me all there is to say about writing or being a writer.
Most people hate getting tagged, but I'll tap the shoulders of fellow Canucks Henshaw, McGrath, Epstein, Trevor, and Brandon and see if they respond.
1 comment:
bravo!
:)
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