Lyrics:Titus Andronicus/The Airing of Grievances
From Geartome
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Fear and Loathing in Mahwah, NJ
Why do you do the things you've done, and how dumb would you have to be to do them again like I know you're going to? If you're the poet you say you are, and beauty's in everything you see, then how can love exist in a world run by people like you? Because when there's suffering, you're there. From southern trees, you hang them in the air. The world screams out in agony and you don't care, but should the shit hit the fan, I just pray you will not be spared. Fuck you. You took a heart with so much room for love, and filled it with hatred and rage until there was nothing left but for it to shrivel up and die. People will tell you that if you don't love your neighbor then you don't love God, but no god of mine would put light in such unrighteous eyes. Now the way we hold each other so tight would look more like a noose if held up to the light, because we betray each other in dreams every night. Now let's never speak of it again, all right? Even now I curse the day, and yet, I think, few come within the compass of my curse, wherein I did not some notorious ill: as kill a man, or else devise his death; ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it; accuse some innocent, and forswear myself; set deadly enmity between two friends; make poor men's cattle break their necks; set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night, and bid the owners quench them with their tears. Oft have I digged up dead men from their graves, and set them upright at their dear friends' doors, even when their sorrows almost were forgot; and on their skins, as on the bark of trees, have with my knife carved in Roman letters. Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead. Tut! I have done a thousand dreadful things as willingly as one would kill a fly, and nothing grieves me heartily indeed but that I cannot do ten-thousand more.
Notes
- Mahwah, New Jersey is the location of Ramapo College, the college attended by Titus Andronicus's Patrick Stickles. About ten miles or so from Glen Rock.
- The outro quote is lines 129-148, Act V, Scene I of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, as read by actor Douglas Rizzo Johnson.
My Time Outside the Womb
The first thing you see is the light, then you focus on a man in a mask with a knife as he cuts you away from everything you thought you knew about life. And now you're in your mother's arms, wrinkled and wet -- you're gonna spend the rest of your life trying hard to forget that you met the world naked and screaming, and that's how you'll leave it. In Riverside Hospital -- this was on a July morning, with a push and a pull, and this is how I found out I wasn't quite so invulnerable. It put the fear of God in me when I heard my daddy say, "One mistake is all that it takes!" I ended up at Central School, 1993. I met a certain kid named Sarim at the library. He said, "There ain't nothing about this place that's elementary." I learned to play the guitar in the seventh grade, in order to convince everyone I was a renegade. That's when I learned, in Glen Rock, everybody calls a spade a spade. I couldn't fool anyone, I couldn't even fool myself. I was just another book on the shelf; nothing else.
Notes
- Titus Andronicus is from Glen Rock, New Jersey.
- Central School is a primary school there.
- Sarim Al-Rawi is a musician and producer from Glen Rock, and was the original drummer for Titus Andronicus. He was also in The Library of Congress and Livefastdie, and is currently the frontman for Liquor Store. Known for his legendary stage antics.
Joset of Nazareth's Blues
There is nothing I’ve ever done I didn’t learn to be ashamed of. No hope and no dream I won’t curse or demean. If that’s what it takes, that’s what I’ll do. If that’s what it takes, I will. And I hope I never get my fill pushing a boulder up on a hill. When we get to the top, we’ll be taking a spill. Every time’s like the first time. Every time is the same. And you don’t believe me now, but you will! Now until you hang upon such a cross, you won’t know a thing about laughter or loss. From Galilee to Gethsemane to Golgotha is a short, short walk.
Notes
- From titusandronic.us: "Joset is named in the Gospel of Mark (as in, the Bible) as the son of Mary. Whether or not it’s the same Mary as Jesus’ mother is up for debate, but if he is, that’d make him Jesus’ brother. Interpret the title as you see fit. Also, Galilee is the part of Israel that Nazareth is in (where Jesus lived), Gethsemane is where Jesus prayed the night before he was crucified, and Gol’gotha is where the actual crucifixion happened."
Arms Against Atrophy
A band trip dance –- what could be the harm, but a six-week vacation from the use of my right arm? It was just the two hits, I remember nothing more: Alex hitting the switch and me hitting the floor. We’re taking this lying down. The one thing I can stand up for is resting supine on the ground. Mr. McDermott, won’t you help me to my feet? Because the drumline’s going wild in the San Francisco streets. The long walk home is an hour and a half, but it quickly turns to three or four with stops at every underpass, but by June 22nd, I have done the math. That’s a hundred-and-five liters I’ll consume of Dr. Path. Some girls will tell their secrets to anyone. The word “love” gets thrown around a lot near graduation, so please don’t whisper sweet nothings in my ear when the sound of shredding vocal chords is what I want to hear, because we’re going to San Francisco and I forgot to wear some flowers in my hair. She’s got a secret surname that nobody knows, with the most gorgeous hyphen -- you wouldn’t believe the way it glows -- and I’m the only one who gets to see it way up close, so the rest of you can stick it up your nose. Last night, I had the strangest dream that I have ever known. My mother, in a fit of rage, chases me from our home. My mother, the murderer, holds me down in the road. She’s got the nail clippers at my throat. Now even though things lately may have been real horrorshow, I’m wishing I was back in utero. I’d like to go back to the way that things were before, but apparently, I’m looking at physical therapy. It won’t be exactly how it used to be. It ain’t hard to see that it’s not that way, not that way anymore. Jesus Christ is suffering upon his cross tonight. I just sit outside waiting for frost to bite. “It’s always this way,” she says on her way out the door. Just wait and see. The rest is yet to reveal itself to me.
Notes
- Supposedly, this song is about Patrick breaking his arm at a dance party on a high school marching band trip to San Francisco.
- According to some dude on SongMeaning who purports to have attened school with Stickles, "San Francisco is where Glen Rock High School went for the choir trip some amount of years, and he was on it. Mr. McDermott was a math teacher who chaperoned the trip. [This other dude on SongMeanings was] probably right about the tripping on acid; evidently, they were taking hits from a bong or of some alcohol and he passed out or something."
- Alex Tretiak is a close friend of the band, and a sometime drummer/filmmaker/librarian in Glen Rock.
- Dr. Path is a Dr. Pepper knockoff sold at Pathmark Food Stores in the New York/New Jersey area.
- "Horrorshow" means "good" in Nadsat, the argot used by Alex's gang in Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange.
- "If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair." - The song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)", written by John Phillips and sung by Scott McKenzie.
Upon Viewing Brueghel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
I was born into self-actualization. I knew exactly who I was, but I never got my chance to be young. So when you lay me inside of a coffin, bury me on the side of the hill. That’s a good place to get some thinking done. It didn’t work out the way that I planned it. They all seem to want to take away everything that I thought to be true. So it’s obvious to me somebody somewhere must have really done a number on you, and I know because the fuckers got me, too. All the pretty horses, all flowers and trees -- they will all mean less than nothing when it all has come to be. God sent me a vision of the future in a dream on a Saturday night, and I see no reason to celebrate. For when I saw it, I wept like a child. It came to me like a knife in the chest. You and me and everyone, forever, to ache and ache and ache. So Father, if it’s possible, let this cup pass me by. But if it can’t without my drinking it, then thy will be done.
Notes
- View the painting Landscape with the Fall of Icarus attributed to Pieter Brueghel the Elder here.
- In 1938, W.H. Auden wrote a poem entitled "Musée des Beaux Arts" after the museum in Brussels that houses the aforementioned painting, and it's possible that the song might refer to this poem, which you can read here.
- Some dude on SongMeanings notes that "the poem, which has much to do about suffering, alludes to a Christ-like "miraculous birth," (i.e., "I was born into self-actualization") and also a "dreadful martyrdom." This idea of a dreadful martyrdom is important, especially when you compare the last lines of the song to Jesus' words in the Garden of Gethsemane (a place that Stickles refers to in "Joset of Nazareth's Blues") before his crucifixion: "Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt." (Mark 14:26)"
- "All the Pretty Horses" is a traditional African-American lullaby, and also the name of a Cormac McCarthy book.
Titus Andronicus
Throw my guitar down on the floor; no one cares what I’ve got to say anymore. I didn’t come here to be damned with faint praise. I’ll write my masterpiece some other day. Fuck everything, fuck me. I’m repeating myself again. Innovation, I leave to smarter men. Pretty melodies don’t fall out of the air for me; I’ve got to steal them from somewhere. But it doesn’t matter what you do or how hard you try. Now there’s nothing left for me to do except die. When they cut you up, they’ll tell you that it’s not going to hurt, but they are not going to stop until they see you go to sleep in the dirt. And there’ll be no more cigarettes, no more having sex, no more drinking until you fall on the floor, no more indie rock -- just a ticking clock. You have no time for that anymore. You better watch where you run your mouth, because you know what they’ll say to you. They’ll say, your life is over. I insist you cease to exist. You think you can come and go as you please? You can’t quit, you’re fucking fired! Your life is over.
Notes
- According to Patrick, the lines "You think you can come and go as you please?/You can’t quit, you’re fucking fired!" are from the song "You Can't Quit (You're Fired)" by "fondly remembered NJ punk pranksters" Roger Klotz, from their 2007 album Scream, Roger Klotz, Scream.
- In the lyric booklet for The Airing of Grievances, the word “die” is listed after “I insist you cease to exist.” In live performances of this song, the band members occasionally chant that, but it doesn't seem to be audible on the studio version.
No Future, Pt. 1
Just give me a suitcase and I’ll promise to not look back. Just point me, point me towards the railroad track. I’ve been staring at the gates, but I’ve never found a crack, so I’m just looking up, saying, “Deliver me a heart attack.” If you’re weary, I don’t mind sharing the load. Just keep me some company on the road. All I’ve got is a bottle that I ought to leave alone, but it’s the only thing that I can call my own. So I’m saying goodbye, and no, I won’t forget to write. It’s just been too long racing towards a yellow light, and I know that I say this every night, but I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired of life. And if things should not get better, will you wait for me to change, or will I see you waving goodbye from the window of an aeroplane? If I told you it was hopeless, would you try to understand, or will you leave me for a palm tree and its shadows on the sand? Because I’ve been waiting all year for the temperature to drop, but now I’ve got a fever and I don’t know how to make it stop. There’s still one shoe that hasn’t dropped yet; it’s hanging on by an aglet. This world seems like a nice place to visit, but I don’t want to live in it. There is not a doctor that can diagnose me -- I am dying slowly from Patrick Stickles Disease. There is not a medication that can cure what’s ailing me. The only treatment they offer is to hang me from a tree. Life’s been a long, sick game of “would-you-rather”, so now I’m going to medical school –- as a cadaver. Now if I could say only one thing with the whole world listening, it would be “Leave me the fuck alone... or welcome to the Terrordome.” Good times are better than... God sent me a vision of the future.
Notes
- Patrick Stickles is the frontman and songwriter for Titus Andronicus.
- An aglet is the small cover on the ends of shoelaces.
- "Welcome to the Terrordome" is a song from Public Enemy's landmark 1990 album Fear of a Black Planet.
No Future, Pt. 2: The Day After No Future
Oh, I recall the last morning the sun would rise on the race of man, after which, it was clear, nothing would be the same again. When called to answer for their crimes, the only response that they could find was that it seemed to be a good idea at the time. Now the sun in the sky has turned to rust, the rivers are running red with blood, and the cries of the helpless are never, never enough. Those of us who were still alive were rightly afraid to go outside, when VuBu said, “This isn’t shoegaze -- this is suicide.” Then they came with torches and pitchforks, carrying guns, clubs and sharp swords, when the loudest voice I ever heard said, “It’s over.”
"And I, too, felt ready to start life all over again. It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I’d been happy, and that I was happy still. For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration."
Notes
- VuBu is short for VU Boots, the nickname of former guitarist Daniel Tews. Check out Patrick's blog post on VU Boots and how he got that name.
- The song ends with a reading from Albert Camus's 1942 novel The Stranger, as read by the late Okey Chenoweth, who was the band's drama teacher at Glen Rock High School.
Albert Camus
Running around this run-down, one-horse town, one of these days, they’re gonna crucify me. How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable it is to be young, dumb, and have lots of money. We will sit upon this grassy knoll, holding hands and stroking handguns, with pristine souls, and even my own mother will tell you I am an asshole, but underneath it all, there is an apathetic heart of gold. So who will be saved, from the least to the greatest men? Because even Honest Abe sold poison milk to schoolchildren. The blood drive came to Glen Rock High in a white bus with red letters on the side and a long shiny needle they brought to suck me dry like missionary mosquitoes in the sky. Now you’re doing time for stealing candy from a babe because all the kids in Ridgewood have got cell phones these days, and if you wear a mask, they can still read your license plate, and a wireless line is a terrible thing to waste. The more we think, the less it all makes sense. Tonight we will drink to our general indifference. Lamb of God, we think nothing of ourselves at all. So, Death, be not proud, because we don’t give a fuck about nothing and we only want what we are not allowed.
Notes
- Albert Camus was a French author and one of the most prominent philosophers of the 20th century. Camus is generally associated with existentialism, so it's fitting that a Titus Andronicus song would be named after him.
- "They're gonna crucify me" is a line from The Beatles' "The Ballad of John and Yoko".
- "How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable" is line 133, Act I, Scene II of Shakespeare's Hamlet.
- From "Homer's Triple Bypass", episode 9F09 of The Simpsons:
- Homer: Kids, kids. I'm not going to die. That only happens to bad people.
- Bart: What about Abraham Lincoln?
- Homer: He sold poison milk to schoolchildren.
- "Death, be not proud" is a quote from John Donne's Holy Sonnet 10.
- The band members went to Glen Rock High School. Ridgewood is an adjacent town.
- The song's outro coda is a variation on the melody of "Titus Andronicus".
