Sarah Shapiro - Stranger
Frank O’Hara wrote an essay on a new movement in poetry that he was calling “Personism.” Since many of his poems were written directly at people in his life, it was as if they took the place of a conversation. O’Hara felt like they were intensified by this real-world existence: the poem could’ve been a moment in time shared between two people instead of a poem. Such moments have an obvious power, and if that power transfers to the page, clearly it would be the most potent writing possible. The essay is meant to be funny but it does signal why some songwriters are so forceful; Elliott Smith is a great example of someone who wrote songs instead of talking to people, Mirah is a genius at it.
The song “Stranger” exists in a similar place between two people, and, of all the ones I can think of, is the most beautifully fucked almost-conversation. In it, Sarah explains that to the stranger that she’s not looking to fall in love but “I do have a sense that if you wrap me in your limbs I will wake up tomorrow feeling slightly less shitty.” That kind of stark truthtelling is not unique in the world, but by the end of the song it’s obvious that no one else could’ve sang it.
There are a few stubborn themes on Sarah’s LP “I Wish I Was an Animal” and they are all troubled. Not just on an individual level where she is certain she’d rather be a horse than a person or can’t figure out how to integrate love into life, but with an anxious concern for the people around her. Even on the individual, one-on-one level of “Stranger” she is bothered by the inevitabilities of emotional damage: “the raddest people I know cannot help being fucked.” I wouldn’t have said it myself but I know exactly what she means. It’s exactly the kind of confrontational honesty that put her in the situation described in “Stranger”, and also what drives her heartache.
Her take on hopelessness falls right into this ideology: “the option seems to be just completely give up or keep stumbling around like some broken lamb.” But before the song breaks down entirely she returns to the stranger, making realistic promises: “we’ll build a nest with our bodies where we’ll sleep for the night it’ll be less than perfect…” Somehow the barren fingerplucked guitar feels the strongest during this part, like two or three extra notes hop in and with that tiny embellishment the song flourishes with this promise of some vague good thing happening.
I guess I spend a lot of my time thinking of menace, hidden threats, sinister undertones. And in this song full of darkness I realize that there isn’t a reciprocal idea, because how could brightness lurk? How do good things hide? This isn’t like a silver lining, because there’s nothing sketchy about silver. But someday we can invent a word for it and this will be the example, the gentle peril of something okay hiding in an essentially ruined existence.
At the end of the song, in “the silence of the violence after we come,” a surprising connection is made during a coldness that seems completely devoid of possibility. Sarah sings: “we’ll put on Joy Division and drink until we’re numb and you’ll say love love will tear us apart, and I’ll say love love will tear us apart, and you’ll say love love will tear us apart again…” I’m not exactly rooting for these two but I feel so happy at their unlikely connection and in such ghastly circumstances. I’m not the only one awed by it: “and the perfection of that moment will be so paralyzingly profound that it will silence us.”
What I like best about Sarah's songs is the different dimensions and depths they can take on depending on my mood. Like when I’m happy I feel like I can resolve all the reflections and honesties of a song like “Stranger”: I can follow the path ricocheting between cynicism and honor, I can recognize the irony in the way the song neatly falls into the narrative of love songs at the exact same moment it attempts to reject this narrative, and I see the finely-toed line between trembling honesty and crafty humor. But when I’m sad I just curl up and plead along with her.
2 comments:
Oh ethie, that paragraph about brightness lurking is wonderful, and I'm looking forward to how it will escort me through some days.
Um but you left out the sentence that goes, "Sarah is like the smartest smart of anywhere", yo?
I think everyone whose made some stuff has had to remind him/herself about how artists lie to themselves all the time and to try and avoid rationalizing all the stitches of made. It's staggering when you can analyse nooks of works that seem like they might have been unintentional products of creativity and then theres no rationalizing but only smarter and smarter and better. God, Sarah.
you guys i just read this and i am all barfed out flattered. i love you guys much. it is actually the only reason to make stuff i think - so that one day some friend will be like - now i understand why you are always so fucked up.. and then you and your friend known or not touch hearts really tenderly and for a minute things stand still and are really ok. and the way they should be all the time in some perfect universe that is like when you are waking up from your dreams and still remember them.
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