Sean Michaels received the 2014 Scotiabank Giller Prize for his novel Us Conductors. He is the editor of the music blog Said the Gramophone.
Liars – The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack (2006)
There comes a day every summer (and in fact also every winter) when I put on the Liars song The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack. It is on a particularly hot day (or a particularly cold one), when each breath feels like a repetition of the prior breath. I am caught in a loop, weary, breathing, breathing again, breathing again, breathing again, tired of this weather, tired of myself, tired of what I am asking myself to do. We count most music in measures and there are days when our lives, too, seem counted in same, in one rhythm repeating, and days when each measure seems unchanging.
For almost 10 years, on days like these, I have been putting on The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack. It is more chant than song – a series of repetitions, sighs and electric guitars, a little poetry, a big bass drum. It is measure after redoubled measure, but at the same time it seems to be making progress as it repeats. It seems to be going somewhere even as it goes nowhere at all.
“If you want me to stay / I will stay by your side,” Liars intone. “If you need me / I will always be found.” I guess I use it as a reminder, in the heart of this heatwave, that stillness doesn’t always mean atrophy. That change isn’t necessarily progress. That occasionally the answer to restlessness is rest.
The Supreme Jubilees – It’ll All Be Over (1979)
One day there will be an election. One day soon – kind of soon, close to soon, Oct. 19 – Canadians will make their choice. The campaign will end, polls will close, and another straight, cis white guy (or the same straight, cis white guy) will probably be named prime minister. Let’s listen in this light to the Supreme Jubilees’ luxurious soul jam It’ll All Be Over. Let’s imagine politicians on their chesterfields, holding their spouses’ hands, vinyl crackling on their turntables. “It’ll all be over,” vow the Jubilees. The politicians sing along under their breaths. “One of these days, it’ll all be over / and we won’t have to cry no more.” As they listen to the guitar and Rhodes, as they mouth the words, the politicians try to picture what that day will look like. They’ll be able to sleep in. They’ll be allowed to spill food on their shirts. They’ll catch up on all those languishing e-mails, the letters from siblings and old friends. They’ll slow-dance with their spouses in the kitchen, listening to the Supreme Jubilees. “One day / one day / one of these old days.…” It will be a paradise, they think. Win or lose, it will be a beautiful, sunset-tinted paradise. But particularly if they win.