Shuffle Synchronicities: Volume 1 - #130
Guest Post by Joey Power + "Silk" by Wolf Alice - 05/12/21
Today we have an old friend and former writing partner Joey Power on the Shuffle. Joey’s written and/or directed two great movies that I’ve talked about before. But if you haven’t yet seen them check them out here and here.
Take it away my friend!
"Modern Man" by Arcade Fire
One of the first times Dave and I really hung out, he came to my apartment senior year of college and we swapped hard drives of music. I’m pretty sure that’s how I learned about Magnetic Fields. He took me to see Dan Deacon a week after he moved to LA. I talked him into driving to hell on earth AKA Las Vegas for a Strokes concert. Music is foundational to our friendship, so I’m excited to get to contribute to this project.
I shuffled my liked songs playlist on Spotify, which is a combination of tracks I save from my discovery weekly and also entire albums that at one point or another I saved in order to access offline, mostly for plane flights. I think having those two categories of songs mixed in the same pot often kinda messes with the flow of the shuffle, especially when the algorithm does that thing where it feeds you more of what you’ve just listened to, so if you’re cruising through a bunch of stuff that’s diverse and not deeply familiar and then something from Joni Mitchell’s Blue comes on, it means more songs from Blue are likely around the corner because you downloaded that album during one specific trip to New York where you really wanted to like, live in your feelings, and suddenly you’re either thrust into this intense experience you weren’t looking to have while doing the dishes or you have to skip a bunch of stuff, which pulls you out of the moment and you remind yourself for the 12th time take all of Blue off of the playlist, but then you get distracted and forget and it comes on again a week later when you’re giving your daughter a bath.
Anyway. I hit shuffle and got “Modern Man” by Arcade Fire, which falls into the category of songs saved as part of an entire album. I’ll admit that, as much as I love this band and The Suburbs, part of me for a split second wanted to skip to the next track because this one felt somehow obvious or uncool. Not old enough to be canonical. Not a deep cut. Like maybe if I’d gotten some post-punk song whose lyrics I had to translate from Japanese this whole entry would be more legit. Probably seven or eight years ago I would’ve skipped to another track and never told you.
But so maybe this was the perfect song to get, because its lyrics seem to be talking to and for—simultaneously empathetic of and lowkey laughing at—the kind of person who’d intentionally skip to a track he felt signified something more interesting, or cool about his taste. Someone with an inclination toward cultural or intellectual peacocking, which I was guilty of a lot in my 20s, and which seemed to be symptomatic of a deeper tendency to think that I was vibrating on a different frequency than most other people, that I had some brilliant and unassailable and totally original insights about art and the world and how to navigate them both.
So I wait my turn, I'm a modern man
And the people behind me, they can't understand
Obviously, it was all born out of wild insecurity and hubris. Getting a little bit older and doing a bunch of therapy has helped make that clear. It’s embarrassing to think about sometimes, but also sometimes not, and I’d like to think I’ve mostly become aware of and consciously tried to correct and naturally, just over time, shed that generally yucky way of interacting with the world (although I’m sure there are a ton more blind spots waiting to reveal themselves than I’d like!). But the thing I can’t quite get over—what I regret in spite of whatever I’ve learned—is how many opportunities I missed, mostly in my career and my relationships, because my head was so far up my own ass or inflated, or both. And I think this song captures that unintentional, ego-imposed stasis really well. The way I read it, at least today, is Win Butler doing this tongue-in-cheek self-absorbed narrator—
They say we are the chosen few
But we’re wasted
And that’s why we’re still waiting
On a number from the modern man
It’s the world’s job to recognize his exceptionalism, not the other way around. Like, that’s my 20s. Thinking about it now triggers a very specific visceral experience I felt through a lot of that decade—like having a stuck word on the tip of my tongue and an itch I couldn’t scratch but for years at a time. It was the feeling of potential energy that built and built and never became kinetic. Butler seems to be expressing that idea both through the lyrics themselves—
Like a record that’s skipping
I’m a modern man
And through their delivery—
So I wait my turn, I'm a modern man
And the people behind me, they can't understand
Makes me feel like
Makes me feel like
There’s a lack of resolution because the narrator’s cutting himself off again and again, and still he’s blaming the lack of resolution on everything but himself.
I don’t really have any ultimate conclusion other than I’m glad I’m mostly—hopefully—past that moment in my life. That, in learning to let go a little bit, to unclench, to not totally try to foist my…whatever onto everything around me, I’ve been able to build a richer life, with more opportunity and less stasis. That in spite of the fact that I can’t eat as many tacos as I did in my 20s (or as late at night) and that throwing out my back has become a real concern, I’ve arrived at a place where I’m not so desperate to flex that I can just go with the first song I get on shuffle and write a hopefully not too self-reflexive thing for my friend’s project and it doesn’t have to be some grand statement but just like a fun thing to do, and maybe even a fun thing to read if you’ve made it this far, and that it’s in line with the spirit of the project, which I like very much and think reflects Dave’s own relaxation and growth as a writer over the last 15 years, not that my opinion matters, as we just established.
Maybe when you’re older you will understand
Love this so much, Joey! Thank you! Couldn’t agree more ;)
I feel like pretty much all of what Joey wrote was also true of me in my 20s and even into my early 30s.
We were quite the writing team LOL.
I remember one time after watching the HBO TV show Young Pope, I told Joey that I saw his growth like Jude Law’s Pope character, from superior to humble, and I think I may have insulted him, but I think I realize I just as much saw my own shadow’s growth in that character as I did his.
I also remember telling someone recently about this Shuffle Synchronicities project and they were, like, yeah, I know a lot of people who’ve used their shuffle like that for a while.
The old Dave, like perhaps the old Joey, would have been offended by the suggestion of a lack of originality and the lack of respect of superiority.
But the new Dave just (mostly) loves the idea of more and more people experiencing the benefits of communication with the ?
Or just people enjoying music.
Regarding my song, I started thinking about it before I got Joey’s post late this afternoon.
And I was going to psychoanalyze the songwriter.
Say something like it feels like she is consciously or not believing God is only a personal savior that can let you down and is not also an immanent thing that never really does.
“Silk” by Wolf Alice
Because the chorus goes:
Just looking for a protector
God never reached out in time
There's love that is a saviour
But that ain't no love of mine
My love it kills me slowly
Slowly I could die
And when she sleeps she hears the blues
And sees shades of black and white
But reading Joey’s post, made me think to be more humble again.
And think about how unspecial whatever I want to call “awakening” is.
That it’s really just “growth” as Joey calls it or maturity.
And that, hopefully, we all go through it, whether it’s slow or sudden, a year of manic episodes or some good therapy over a few more, and/or a million other ways.
That the goal is for everyone to keep growing, maturing, awakening.
And that whatever I think of the lyricist’s seeming depressive doubt today, I might think of it differently tomorrow, and that most people in the world don’t really care what I think of it at all.
That the sound of the song is beautiful, and let’s leave it at that.
Is it a synchronicity that Joey’s post about his 20s is post 130? I think so.
Okay, that’s the one hundred and thirtieth Shuffle Synchronicities.