David Comes To Life

I was in a funk today, and I'm pretty sure it has to do with looking at old family pictures and listening to Fucked Up's new album, David Comes To Life. It's a rock opera about a British factory worker named David who hates his life until he falls in love with a women handing out Leftist leaflets named Veronica. They have a brief period of happiness, then she dies, and..I haven't made it that far into the album. The first few songs are killing me. Just read the lyrics to "Under My Nose."

The wind has changed and now it's brought all the sweetest smells he'd forgot. Not the faintest stench from the old days as it all finally drifts away. Damn those skeptics, harbingers of doom; negative epidemic, followers of Hume. He understands all her needs, and for that she loves him eternally. Syncretism is so natural and they're experiencing something so actual. "My sun is shining, how about yours? It's kind of blinding, burn my eyes pure." It's all been worth it. Now he looks forward to waking up, she's unstuck him from his rut. He couldn't wait to run off and go to sleep and let all his problems make their retreat. "Used to wake up screaming, stolen from our dreams; now I wake up beaming and the world just gleams." With a sense of impending doom that it's all going to end too soon, it's all too good to be true, where the fuck is the other shoe? It's all been worth it


The other shoe he is talking about is her imminent death, referenced in the next song, "the Other Shoe," which begins with Veronica singing "We're dying on the inside." Melodic post-punk, layers upon layers of sounds, and a vocalist who sounds like he's been gargling glass.  Listening to that, looking at pictures of my dead relatives...fuuuuck. 





There are two antidotes. One is garage rock by aging ex-junkies about sexual frustration.
Exhibit a:



The other is 70s reggae. Particularly the combination of wicked groove with pissed off lyrics. Exhibit B, I'm like a walking razor don't you cross my path I'm dangerous.