Love Gone Wrong Records #2
When everything around you seems to be a bloody hell, your head couldn’t stand it and your stomach is icy and upset, you should absolutely find the energy to go find something to listen to in your record collection. It’s not that you’ll necessarily feel better, after that, sometimes the situation could even get worse, but is an instinct which, apart from satisfying your acoustic and aesthetic needs, could make you feel like characters of a song, instead than the regular nerdy.
So, what do you have to listen to, when you feel like crap? Which record is good to put on, when you feel sick for love, or just because the day before you went too far with rum or Jaegermaister, took too many drugs or simply got your monthly bang of existential depression?
When the problem is unreturned love, ceased love, too complicated one, which would make you feel as a trashcan, you got two choices: you can wallow yourself with your unease, choosing some depressive records, romantic or melancholic ones, or on the contrary you could always choose the energy-bang solution, listening to something that would be melodic, violent or allegro enough to give you the shake.
Darkness quilted with little hope signs in Nick Cave’s records belongs to the first group, and this is especially true for records like “The Boatman’s call”, which starts, not by chance, with the words
“I don’t believe in an interventionist God
But I know, darling, that you do
But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him
Not to intervene when it came to you
Not to touch a hair on your head
To leave you as you are
And if He felt He had to direct you
Then direct you into my arms”
Then, we want to see if you won’t start crying of despair, thinking about your pain but with your brain tail still looking forward for the future love, yet to come, “All Tomorrow’s loves” as Lou Reed could have sang when he wasn’t totally burnt by amphetamine yet. Your tears will dwindle and finally calm, making you feel so tired and willing to sleep for centuries, and there is King Ink giving you another bang asking the unknown girl, picked up to make him forget about his love gone wrong, to let him alone with his worst dreams
“then leave me to my enemied dreams, and be quiet as you are leaving, miss”
Then, if you ever get a sleep, don’t deceive you’ll have a relaxed one.
On the other hand, if you want to keep your eyes wide open, confronting with love which was born, according to the priggish people, from the trash, so your depression and bravery-for-tomorrow record should be Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks”, where the Irishman wrote great litanies about love, like
“and the gloves to love to love the gloves to love the gloves to love…”, singing his “sick” feeling version, feeling which belongs to Madame George the transvestite, who the song’s named after, for the brats who harass him and rob his money. Or the love, even more difficult to accept, that the protagonist of the song “Cyprus Avenue” nourish for a 14-year old girl who he peeps to every day when she comes back from school, even if he knows that he’ll never meet her or talk to her
“Yeah baby my tongue gets tied
Every every every time I try to speak
My tongue gets tied
Every time I try to speak
And my inside shakes just like a leaf on a tree
I think I’ll go on by the river with my cherry cherry wine”
For Morrison these kinds of love doesn’t have less dignity than the fresh and passionate one in “The Way young lovers do”, when he reminds us the wonder of a secret passion celebrated on the grass, in a dark room with palpitations about being discovered, or everywhere else seems impossible to love
“Then we sat on our own star and dreamed of the way that we were
and the way that we were meant to be
And then we danced the night away
And turned to each other, say, ‘I love you, I love you’
The way that young lovers do
Do, do, do, do…”
And if you really want so badly to be optimistic about love, even if it’s highly risky, well I don’t think you could find something better than a verse written by an author who’s famous for his lyric’s sadness.
Quando tutto attorno vi sembra un inferno, la testa non regge e lo stomaco è gelido e in subbuglio, bisogna assolutamente avere la forza di andare sempre a pescare qualcosa nella propria collezione di dischi. Non è che questo vi faccia necessariamente star meglio, a volte potrebbe addirittura peggiorare la situazione, ma è un istinto che oltre a soddisfare il bisogno acustico ed estetico può farvi sentire dei personaggi di una canzone, invece dei soliti sfigati che si piangono addosso.
Cosa ascoltare allora, quando vi sentite uno schifo? Che disco mettere su, quando state male per amore, o se il giorno prima avete esagerato con lo Jaegermaister o il rum, avete preso troppe droghe o semplicemente vi è arrivata la botta mensile di depressione esistenziale?
Quando è l’amore non ricambiato, finito, troppo complicato o doloroso a farvi sentire una busta di spazzatura, avete due possibilità: o vi crogiolate nel malessere, scegliendo dischi depressivi, romantici o melanconici, oppure ricorrete alla soluzione botta-di-energia, e vi ascoltate qualcosa di melodico, allegro o violento che possa darvi una scossa.
Il buio trapuntato da piccoli segni di speranza dei dischi di Nick Cave appartiene alla prima categoria, e questo vale in particolare per quelli come “The Boatman’s call”, che non a caso attacca con un
“I don’t believe in an interventionist God
But I know, darling, that you do
But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him
Not to intervene when it came to you
Not to touch a hair on your head
To leave you as you are
And if He felt He had to direct you
Then direct you into my arms”
E poi vediamo se non scoppiate a piangere senza speranza, pensando al vostro dolore ma con la coda del cervello anche ai prossimi amori, di la da venire, “All Tomorrow’s loves”, come avrebbe detto Lou Reed quando ancora non era completamente bruciato dall’anfetamina. Le lacrime andranno poi scemando e si calmeranno progressivamente, facendovi sentire tanto stanchi e con la voglia di dormire per secoli, ed è a quel punto che Re Inchiostro vi darà un’altra botta, chiedendo alla sconosciuta raccattata per scordare i suoi amori andati a male, di lasciarlo ai suoi sogni peggiori
“then leave me to my enemied dreams, and be quiet as you are leaving, miss”
Quindi, semmai riuscirete a dormire, non illudetevi di fare sonni tranquilli.
Se invece gli occhi li volete tenere ben aperti, e confrontarvi con l’amore che nasce, secondo i benpensanti, dalla spazzatura, allora il vostro disco di depressione e coraggio per il domani è “Astral Weeks” di Van Morrison, dove l’irlandese dalle grandi filastrocche sull’amore, come “and the gloves to love to love the gloves to love the gloves to love…”, canta la sua versione del sentimento “malato”, in questo caso quello del travestito Madame George, che da il nome alla canzone, per i ragazzini che lo tormentano e gli rubano i soldi. Oppure quello, ancora più difficile da accettare, che il protagonista di “Cyprus Avenue” nutre per una ragazzina quattordicenne che tutti i giorni va a spiare in macchina, mentre esce da scuola, pur sapendo che non la conoscerà né ci parlerà mai
“Yeah baby my tongue gets tied
Every every every time I try to speak
My tongue gets tied
Every time I try to speak
And my inside shakes just like a leaf on a tree
I think I’ll go on by the river with my cherry cherry wine”
Ma per Morrison questi amori non hanno meno dignità di quelli freschi e appassionati di “The Way young lovers do”, quando ci ricorda la meraviglia della passione clandestina celebrata su un prato, in una stanza buia col batticuore di essere scoperti o in qualsiasi altro luogo dove sembri impossibile amarsi
“Then we sat on our own star and dreamed of the way that we were
and the way that we were meant to be
And then we danced the night away
And turned to each other, say, ‘I love you, I love you’
The way that young lovers do
Do, do, do, do…”
E se proprio volete essere ottimisti, sull’amore, anche se è altamente sconsigliato, beh non credo possiate trovare di meglio di una strofa scritta da un autore famoso per la tristezza dei suoi testi.
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