[Produced through Union Institute and University's Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies program, 2011]
In 1999, the Flaming Lips released The Soft Bulletin. The album's critical, musical and philosophical acclaim has grown wildly since its release; it is regarded by some as the band's masterwork, as well as a final defining work in the field of rock music in the twentieth century. Like Boethius' The Consolation of Philosophy, the Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin (1999) contains the notable lyrical construction, and an according embrace, of a specific philosophy: one of individual accomplishment and triumph. This discussion will define philosophical and theological themes found in The Soft Bulletin (1999), and will identify some beliefs shared by Boethius' The Consolation of Philosophy-- namely, problems located between human reason and “passion,” and, a useful reconciliation of a God existing in a world containing evil.
Context for Boethius' Consolation
Boethius (524) in The Consolation of Philosophy offers a classical example of the Lips' philosophical aim; this jail-cell treatise on the abilities of faith, outside of a strictly religious discussion was widely popular during the Middle Ages, having been translated “into Old, Middle and Elizabethan English by Alfred the Great, Chaucer, and Queen Elizabeth respectively” (“Introduction to Boethius,” n.d.). This work was written while Boethius was imprisoned; he would be executed shortly after the completion of this work. In his introduction to the Consolation Seth Lerer (2008) described it as a work that seeks “to create a kind of parallel dialogue between the discourses of literary and logical inquiry” (xv); and, a dialogue that “transmutes the central myths of classical paganism to provide allegories of wandering, struggle, and reward that prisoner and the reader may use to locate themselves in the spiritual world” (xv). This action of location as promoted by The Consolation of Philosophy may be related to the difficult environment of prison, where the work was conceived; the themes of “wandering, struggle and reward” relate distinctly to the first-person narrator.
Context for The Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin (1999)
The Flaming Lips began in the 1980s, the product of two brothers-- Wayne and Mark Coyne-- and bassist Michael Ivins. After moderate commercial success and collaboration with producer Dave Fridmann, their 1993 hit “She Don't Use Jelly” was chosen for use in a number of popular television shows; Clouds Taste Metallic (1995) and Zaireeka (1997) both represent transitional periods for the band, as the former included a remarkable but unstable lead guitarist who left the band shortly after the album's release, and the latter being an experimental album, to be played on four compact disc players at once. Warner Brothers' support for the Flaming Lips' experimentation following Zaireeka (1997) led to the production of The Soft Bulletin (1999); enabled by the financial and creative support of their label, the Flaming Lips-- now Wayne Coyne, Michael Ivins and Stephen Drozd-- set forth to compile and complete The Soft Bulletin (1999).
Rock was marked by an evolution in the philosophy espoused by its players during the 1990s; notably, Kurt Cobain, both in and out of his band, Nirvana, helped define “grunge” as being more than a musical style, but rather an attitude of apathy and resignation, until his suicide in 1994. While drummer-turned-instrumentalist Stephen Drozd battled heroin addiction throughout the 1990s, the Flaming Lips sought consistently on The Soft Bulletin (1999) to promote in individuals a compassion and secular sense of purpose and intention, regardless of a band member's abilities or choices. In partial answer to the apathetic stance of “grunge” musicians, the Flaming Lips' productions during the 1990s reflected an able, capable, and willing view of humanity (“all your bad days will end/you have to sleep late when you can” said one song from Clouds Taste Metallic (1995, “Bad Days”)); this view culminated in the production of The Soft Bulletin.
The need for philosophical consolation is built in both works of the reconciliation of an individual's rational and emotional perceptions and responses to their environment. A mysterious and powerful woman enters Boethius' room, and chases out the muses of poetry, exclaiming: “what we want is the fruits of reason, while all they have is the useless thorns of intemperate passion” (Boethius, 2008, p. 16). These fruits are products of human individuals, their best and rational perceptions; the thorns of “intemperate passion” plague and cloud understanding of reason. In “The Spiderbite Song,” from The Soft Bulletin (1999), lead singer Wayne Coyne describes an actual incident involving bandmate Drozd:
when you got that spiderbite on your hand
I thought we would have to break up the band
to lose your arm would surely upset your brain
but the poison then could reach your heart from a vein
I was glad that it didn't destroy you/how sad that would be
cause if it destroyed you/it would destroy me
Through fruits of reason, Drozd's survival of the spiderbite may be questioned; the dire circumstances are described, and the fate of the individuals involved is intertwined. Through “thorns of passion,” the destruction of the individual due to a spiderbite is seen as a sad and mournful loss. The second verse of this song describes a car crash, while the third and final verse describes being in love: “...the greatest thing a heart can know/but the hole that it leaves in its absence can make you feel so low” (Flaming Lips, 1999, “The Spiderbite Song”). Enduring nothing but the “thorns of passion” (Boethius, 2008, p. 16), love and only the loss of love itself, still incites the Lips' fear of mutual destruction.
Images of individuals, their bodies and actions, help construct other songs on The Soft Bulletin (1999): following a pattern of long parenthetical song titles established on earlier albums, these titles reflect a persistent relocation of an individual within time and space:
“The Spark That Bled (The Softest Bullet Ever Shot)”
“The Gash (Battle Hymn for the Wounded Mathematician)”
“Race for the Prize (Sacrifice of the New Scientists)”
“What is the Light? (An Untested Hypothesis Suggesting That the Chemical [In Our Brains] by Which We Are Able to Experience the Sensation of Being in Love is the Same Chemical that Caused the “Big Bang” That Was the Birth of the Accelerating Universe)”
(The Flaming Lips, 1999).
Of these, the last serves to illustrate an essential tenet of the Flaming Lips' philosophy, as described by The Soft Bulletin (1999): whatever larger powers may be at work in the world exterior to human individuals, some amount of that power-- and its requisite capabilities-- must be located within each of us. Divine and higher powers may reside beyond the full environments of these, our conflicts, but their presence is immaterial; the song “The Gash,” in its triumphant and orchestral bridge, asks not of God, and seeks not to take comfort in any notions of predestination, as it asks: “will the fight for our sanity/be the fight of our lives/now that we've lost all the reasons/that we thought that we had?” (The Flaming Lips, 1999). The ability of the individual to triumph trumps all other responses; the “fight” for “sanity,” perhaps the reconciliation of reason and emotion, may consume any of us, but will likely remain our philosophical preoccupation, if we are to harbor any at all.
Waiting for a Superman: Theodicy in Boethius and The Soft Bulletin (1999)
Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy notes the presence of God as above and outside of humanity, defining the relationship perhaps dominantly as one of a creator and its creation: “...He who gave the sun his rays, and horns unto the moon. 'Tis He who set mankind on earth, and in the heavens the stars. He put within our bodies spirits which were born in heaven. And thus a highborn race has He set forth in man” (Boethius, 1902, p. 71). The aspiration and intention God has for His creation in The Consolation of Philosophy may be unrecognizable to the created; the “wandering” described by Lerer (2008) earlier is not only an emotional movement, but a fluid and transforming spiritual and psychological state.
Many critics have identified in Boethius' Consolation the concept of theodicy, defined best by the question: 'how may God exist, and be seen as retaining a full and complete power, while evil is permitted to exist in the same world?' This theological dilemma has been carried forward, all the way to The Soft Bulletin (1999), in which , God is not named or defined. The closest construction of a higher power may come in the album's morbid centerpiece, “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate,” which describes an individual's passing away, through only a few lyrics, spread across dramatic minutes:
love in our life is just too valuable
oh, to feel, for even a second, without it
but life without death is just impossible
oh, to realize something is ending within us
feeling yourself disintegrate
Perhaps, for such ambition-- even in the face of utter disintegration-- the Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin (1999) suffers no discussion of theodicy, but heralds the ability of the individual, beyond even the grave. The action of love is regarded as defining life, both in this song and elsewhere on the album; while the action of giving and receiving love may fulfill the Creator's expectations in Boethius' The Consolation of Philosophy, the potential within individuals to prevail and succeed, in however fleeting a moment is available to them, shifts the focus of the Lips' work to the literal and practical abilities of the listeners.
Successful Philosophical Rock: Conclusion
The Soft Bulletin (1999) helped establish new philosophical dimensions for rock music, far beyond the shallow apathy of grunge: like Boethius' The Consolation of Philosophy, The Soft Bulletin (1999) sought to regard an individual's abilities themselves a profound remark on the nature of divinity. While the Flaming Lips may avoid direct confrontation of the dilemma of theodicy, the context for all of the actions described by the lyrics of the album are the same: love. This too serves as profound philosophical consolation. The further embrace of philosophical discussion in rock music is useful; as with the Flaming Lips, the genre may prove rich and persuasive.
Works Cited
Boethius. (1902). The Consolation of Philosophy. Trans. W.V. Cooper. Retrieved from http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=BoePhil.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=3&division=div1
Boethius. (2008). The Consolation of Philosophy. Trans. David R. Slavitt. Intro. S. Lerer. Retrieved from http://www.hup.harvard.edu/resources/educators/pdf/BOECON.pdf
Flaming Lips, The. (1995). Clouds Taste Metallic. [Compact disc]. Burbank: Warner Brothers.
Flaming Lips, The. (1997). Zaireeka. [Compact disc]. Burbank: Warner Brothers.
Flaming Lips, The. (1999). The Soft Bulletin. [Compact disc]. Burbank: Warner Brothers.
“Introduction to Boethius.” (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.san.beck.org/Boethius1.html
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