Difficult Music

HATE MYSELF
I was really bummed out by my Hate Yourself entry of a few days ago. It left a bad taste in my mouth—the taste I get whenever I don't trust the validity of what I want to say and end up writing something horribly compromised.

I should have written this: I love "Hate Yourself," but I'm appalled by it as well. I don't like that I like it. The lyrics are ESL-awkward, and their phrasing is sometimes forced. It wallows in negativity and pretentious sentiment. "Hate yourself with a touch of glamour"? Marilyn Manson could have written that. And there's enough empty anger passing itself off as entertainment these days.

But there was a day early last April when I was going crazy from the pressures of school and watching classmates implode around me. All I wanted to do was hold everyone together for just a couple more weeks, but at the same time I wanted to scream, "just relax for fuck's sake, step outside yourself, take a break, get some sleep, have a drink, jerk off, do whatever you need to do to stop annoying everyone else and have them end up hating you for all eternity." I sent an email to a few friends wherein I let off some steam in an un-Rob Hugheslike manner, and the response I got a couple hours later from one friend was so awesomely positive and affirming that I immediately put on "Hate Yourself" and started leaping around the room like the floor was electrified. When it ended I was vibrating with joy. I then sat down and resumed my work.

That's why I love the song. That's why I love how Peter Hammill screams "One more haggard drowned man!" on "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" or "total ANNIHILATION!" (stretching the last word out for about 25 seconds) on "After the Flood." That's why I love "1/4 Dead" by Rudimentary Peni (who might be my favourite band ever if I didn't already have 324 Favourite Bands Ever), whose libretto primarily consists of "3/4 of the world is starving/The rest are deeeaaad!" There is enough catharsis in the blood-death-and-drug-saturated expanse of my music collection to last me the rest of my days. I can survive anything.