Juliana Hatfield: “Universal Heart-Beat”

Music might have been the first thing outside of my own immediate life I ever gave myself over to — up until I discovered the radio, the things I was really into were things that were introduced to me (e.g., all the games on the Commodore 64 and the Nintendo we had kicking around) or things which I had created myself (e.g., the 400 comic books I drew during 4th and 5th grade). We didn’t have cable in my house and never really went to see any movies, so I guess that was my first and most significant experience with allowing an outside force to imprint itself on my fresh little brain. So with this in mind I guess my question is: Is it significant that, during that period, every single good song hitting my tender brain — and the brains of countless others — was about being miserable?

Now that I’ve said that, let me yank the wheel away from Rob Gordon-level sophomorism before this starts to look like a bad Livejournal. I don’t mean to imply that, Pavlov-like, a generation of people in the working world snap to bummers whenever we hear an Am7, and I don’t mean that the Me Generation is predisposed to showing up to work without having showered because, like, the music made us that way, man. As youth once held dear to the Stones or Zep or Sabbath or Depeche Mode so did they to Alice in Chains. But a whole bunch of us learned how to sort out what being straight bummed out was with authorial voices that all shared similar traits — the canonized musicians from the early-to-mid 90’s all tended to be frank and upfront about feeling wrong, and then why they felt wrong, without feeling a need to offer a solution or discuss redemption. The climaxes of songs-as-narratives all happened musically; rare’s the lyric that didn’t chase its own tail until it had purged to satisfaction, and then ended. Wide brushes and wide strokes here, I know, but I don’t think I’m wrong.

So I’m wondering how that impacts how people my age react to feeling low themselves. When you observe a toolkit being used by others, I think the urge, counter to what groups of concerned parents might have you believe, is to ape the use of that kit, rather than to subscribe to its product. I don’t think it’s accidental that everybody in my age range is interested in the Internet as a tool for data propogation — and I certainly don’t think that its mere existence is explanation enough. When we have a strong feeling, the impulse is to take it out of ourselves and put it somewhere it can be shared. Take A Bummer, Leave A Bummer.

I guess I say all that to say this: I loved this song when I was fifteen. I loved it so much, and then I got dumped, and my immediate reaction was to make a t-shirt with the chorus on it and wear it around. And that’s part and parcel of the experience of being fifteen (although the Sharpie-on-Beefy-T might itself be distinctly of an era), no harm, no foul; I’ve worn dumber things in my life and I’m sure the unwashed shoulder-length hair was already doing its own part to typify me as somebody who needed to relax a little. But I’ve had such a bad month this month, as an adult with a job and an apartment and bills, and I woke up this morning with the dun yaw still in my chest, and I swear to god, upon rising I went to my closet to look for that shirt. And now I’m writing about that experience on the internet, tacking the chorus at the top like a slogan. So either I’m onto something here, or I really need to get over myself. Either way.