Today I’m going to take you back to 1995 to unearth another auditory gem.
Lately I’ve been binge listening to Fight This Generation by Pavement, an emotional and lyrical masterpiece composed by the brilliant Stephen Malkmus.
Take a listen, after which I’ll explain why this song has such a special place in my heart.
First off, this song is more about how it makes me feel than what is said, with a few very notable exceptions that I’ll mention.
During the first verse, I feel contemplative sadness. The violin track, layered on top of gentle, rolling, three-four time drums just breaks my heart. Then in the chorus this wailing guitar comes in. It feels like this instrument is actually crying, mourning some loss, that to this point (given the brilliant ambiguity of Stephen Malkmus’s lyrics) I don’t quite understand.
Malkmus’s vocals are delivered in this first verse and chorus in a complementary manner. They are sad and exhausted. It feels like he has given up. He says, “I won’t let you fall down,” but it seems like wishful thinking at this point. The energy is just sapped from his voice.
Then, with one disgusted “ahhh” at the start of the second verse, everything changes. Malkmus is no longer sad. He is frustrated. He is pissed off.
“God damn the guts and the gore. Nobody’s crying cause there’s no one to score for.”
He still layers the ambiguity on heavy. But I find myself pissed and frustrated with him. This is the beauty of true art. Pavement has created an emotional vessel to which I can attach my current experience.
Right now I’m frustrated with so many things.
I’m frustrated that people have become so disconnected from each other.
I’m frustrated that people of means don’t know the meaning of “enough.”
I’m frustrated that truth is dying and that many people will needlessly die because of this.
I’m frustrated that greed, hatred, and ignorance are running rampant across the globe like a freaking pandemic.
That one “ahhh” is so powerful because it allows me to let go of all of this for one peaceful moment. To know it’s alright to be frustrated. To know that good things can come from this really bad feeling.
When we arrive at the end of the verse I get chills. That’s because Malkmus ends the statement, “who you gonna screw down,” with, “here, now.” And then he seamlessly transitions this to:
“I am here now.”
But he doesn't just say it once. He repeats it, and as he does, the song breaks down. He repeats it until he believes it.
And then the song stops.
We hear guitar feedback.
Being truly still and “here” allows for transformation.
And a new song starts.
This is the moment in the story where the protagonist rallies against his plight, transforming his sadness and frustration into action. The drums switch to driving four-four time beat. The kick drum provides a steady beat on all quarter notes, aligning with the guitar, which also hits on each quarter note. After flailing around for the first half of the song, Pavement is now aligned and focused. They are ready to “Fight This Generation.”
That’s when Malkmus delivers two bars that simply eviscerates our generations’ love affair with greed, hatred, and ignorance.
“Your life is about to come, Away from the mirror in a rain-shed.”
Now, first off I must clarify that we are not talking about Kendrick's mirror here. The beauty of what Kendrick did was that he flipped the symbolism of a mirror on its head. No… Malkmus’s mirror is the mirror of greed and ignorance. The one you look into and say, “how do I get more for that guy (or gal) at the expense of someone else.” This is the mirror of delusion that most of us carry as a burden through life.
So, in two bars Malkmus tells us our fate. Your life is not only going to eventually get stripped away from the mirror, but you’ll be kicked out into the storm, unprotected by the rain-shed in which the mirror lives. You will have to deal with the world as is, rather than the artificial and insulated world that lives inside the mirror.
So, what do we do? We Fight This Generation. We fight, over and over and over again, as evidenced by Malkmus’s repetition of this statement.
But then Malkmus throws another curve ball. His last words are:
“Stop right”
We all expect him to eventually say, “Now.”
But he doesn't.
Instead the song again starts wandering. Silly sounds (that sound like a clown’s slide whistle) enter the song that make a mockery of the seriousness of the song’s message, followed by a ridiculous guitar solo that feels quite greedy and selfish compared to the unity of the prior section.
And then it ends.
This is a terribly sad ending to me. It communicates such a deep level of angst and hopelessness with whatever was troubling Malkmus that it makes me want to cry.
But I also like the ending because it tells us what is at stake if we don’t keep the fight alive every day. Entropy will strike, we will lose our courage, fall apart, and fade into oblivion. Just like the song.
But we don’t have to succumb to this fate.
We can complete the sentence.
We can work to make our greed, hatred, and ignorance Stop Right - NOW.
Set this intention when you wake up every morning, and come back to it day after day.
This is the fight. This is our responsibility.