Song Analysis #33: The Joy Formidable – I Don’t Want to See You Like This

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Title: ‘I Don’t Want to See You Like This’
Where to find it: ‘I Don’t Want to See You Like This’ 7″ picture disc single (Atlantic, 2010), ‘The Big Roar’ (Atlantic, 2011)
Performed by: The Joy Formidable
Words by: I’m not sure – I’ll have to ask when I see them next!

The Joy Formidable are an incredibly important band to me. After suffering a crippling bout of heartbreak, I saw them play to a small crowd (at most 40 people?) at Black Cat Backstage in November 2010, and it was very strange to me how incredibly cathartic throwing yourself into hard, fast, loud rock music can be when you’re feeling the lowest of the low. We became friends when they returned to DC 4 months later for a sold out show for the main room of the Black Cat and we had a great, really candid chat backstage, and that was when I learned what nice, genuine people they are.

They’re now playing around the world and selling out huge venues, yet it doesn’t matter how big they are. I know they’ll never forget those early days when we wrote about them on TGTF, when they were virtually unknown, and all the unwavering support I’ve given them. They’ve put me on their guest list so many times, including for an industry show at SXSW in March that I was sure would be impossible to get into otherwise. I’ve watched their star steadily rise after so many years of hard work, and I couldn’t be happier for three wonderful people I am blessed to call friends.

When I started Music in Notes, I told myself I’d write about ‘The Greatest Light is the Greatest Shade’ at some point. It still stands as my favourite song of theirs and while I’m now several years out from the incident that could have ended my life and the song is so important to me, it’s still too personal to discuss. So that will have to wait for another day. Instead, I’ve chosen something else. I’ve been running a lot lately – I’ve found it helps my joint pain, as well as provide a reasonably low impact way to relieve the pent-up stress from a long day’s work – and it was on one of these recent runs that I was listening to their debut album, 2011’s ‘The Big Roar’, that ‘I Don’t Want to See You Like This’ came on and it struck me that it was the frenetic yet still similarly emotionally charged sister to ‘The Greatest Light is the Greatest Shade’.

Please also note that today, the 15th of April 2014, is the 1-year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing. One year ago today, while terrible things were going on in one of the few cities in the United States I hold beloved, unbeknownst to me, a new chapter of my life was about to open and change my life. But I recently had to close out that chapter, and it wasn’t easy at all: emotions were high and ties were cut. What Ritzy Bryan sings in ‘I Don’t Want to See You Like This’ is truth: change in inevitable, but the important part is seeing that more often than not, change is good, and it’s the strength you find when you finally come to the decision that is most empowering.

First, the words:

Verse 1
A bridge splits November’s sky
I’m in two halves inside
This is the past right here
I choose to leave it here

The cliffs loom to scrape you thin
The bowl churns to over spill
But I can see us here
Without this fear

Verse 2
I want to find those books
Search your face, torment us
You’re just a shower to someone dry
A shower to the wilted and the dried

‘Cause we all leave courage’s side
But I’ll always be courage’s child
The past I’ll clear
I choose to leave it here

Pre-chorus
You say have your time again
But you can’t and the warning starts now
What’s in the frame?
It makes you sad but you can’t fill the gaps

We’re four rings on a chain
So don’t make them rust
I’ll be your maps, I’ll be your eyes
I’ll give the ending a nudge

Chorus
And I don’t want to see you like this
I don’t want to see you like this
And I don’t want to see you like this
I don’t want to see you like this

Bridge
Alive now in the middle not looking from outside
Wishing that it was a screen fight
Settled with all of a hero’s flair
Put aside, find a new character

Modified chorus
I don’t want to, don’t want to
Don’t want to see you like this
And I don’t want to see you like this
I don’t want to see you like this

Reprise of verse 1
A bridge splits November’s sky
I’m in two halves inside
This is the past right here
I choose to leave it here

Now, the analysis:

What begins and ends the song is really, really important. I can’t stress this enough. Please read the lyrics again:

A bridge splits November’s sky
I’m in two halves inside
This is the past right here
I choose to leave it here

There’s a bridge splitting November’s sky (hmm, that’s interesting, isn’t it? I saw them for the first time in November 2010) but the protagonist is in two halves. Broken. In two. The two broken piece could represent a broken heart, but helpfully, it can also represent looking back at the past vs. looking forward into the future. As Ritzy stands in the past, she’s making the conscious decision to “choose to leave it here.” I can’t be sure if this is regarding two friends or two lovers, but I imagine she’s leaving behind good memories and bad she had with the other person and has to take this step in order to not only stay true to herself, but also to look out for herself as #1 and and take care of herself.

After you get past this first half of verse 1, you get to an incredibly evocative passage:

The cliffs loom to scrape you thin
The bowl churns to over spill
But I can see us here
Without this fear

The cliffs are described as foreboding, physically capable of ruin. Then comes the image of being drowned. Yet, despite all these scenes of despair, she sees the two of them stood together. “Without this fear”, because together, joining forces, they can get through anything.

I’m not sure I have the lyrics right for the next verse. However, what is clear is how, again, they’ve chosen these incredibly evocative words: “You’re just a shower to someone dry / A shower to the wilted and the dried”. I’m torn about what this means. If it’s positive, it can be read as a compliment to someone who provides encouragement. If it’s negative, it can be read entirely differently, as an insult. A rain shower is something that is ephemeral, going as quickly as it’s come, and in this verse, the shower is running over dry and wilted things, things are dead and useless.

I’m leaning towards the latter explanation, because there is no mention that “someone dry” ever came back to life. I read it as a jab at a former lover who came in as a whirlwind into her life and proved to be good in the moment, but she eventually realised that his influence was fleeting and she no longer needed him in her life. She goes on, “’cause we all leave courage’s side / but I’ll always be courage’s child”, courage is something we all want and need but we are not always by courage’s side. Hardly. Being scared and having fear, in all facets of our life, is just the way it goes. But she has the confidence to say that even if she’s not 100% courageous in everything she does and she might not feel particularly courageous in this exact moment, she will find courage again.

What I find very telling about the pre-chorus is that the female protagonist is a very strong person. No matter what feelings she has about being hurt by the other person, she isn’t attacking that person. She isn’t saying goodbye and good riddance. She’s trying to keep the relationship together: “we’re four rings on a chain / so don’t make them rust”. Maybe this song is about maintaining a platonic friendship after a romantic one? Yet there is no sense of desperation or urgency either. She’s on an even keel. She has her emotions under control. She’s even offering to assist. If this really was a romance gone sour, she has the strength to offer herself up as the guiding light in the other’s life: “I’ll be your maps, I’ll be your eyes / I’ll give the ending a nudge”. As much pain as she must have felt at one point, she’s not being vindictive. She’s being an adult. She wants a happy ending. For both of them.

The bridge seems to indicate that she’s aware of the gravity of the situation. “Alive now in the middle not looking from outside / Wishing that it was a screen fight / Settled with all of a hero’s flair”: wouldn’t it be easier if all the most horrible personal conflicts we suffered could neatly be resolved in less than 2 hours like they do in the movies? But the last line of the bridge – “Put aside, find a new character” – tells me she’s ready to move on.

You’re probably confused why I haven’t even discussed the song title yet. I think it’s actually the least important thing about the song, but it’s a testament to the Joy Formidable’s writing talent that even the title and those words have two meanings. Think about it for a moment. The most obvious explanation of the title is that of a woman looking at a friend or lover and being upset in herself that what they once had is no longer there. I think this is what most people see and what they’re probably getting upset over, because we’ve all been hurt by someone else and it hurts like hell when you encounter that person again and you feel all the emotions come bubbling to the surface again. However, squint at the words and consider them again. They just might not be words of pain. It might be a way for the protagonist to say to the other person, “you know what? I don’t like the person I was when I was with you. I need to leave you behind so I can be strong.” How amazing that ‘I Don’t Want to See You Like This’ can read to have a similar message to Keane’s ‘Can’t Stop Now’.

Lastly, the song, in its promo form from autumn 2010.

“The heart is a fragile organ.”

Essay

The heart is a funny thing: it is an essential organ, like the brain, or your liver, or your kidneys. But it holds a different kind of memory within it. It is the one organ in the human body that can be damaged emotionally, and such damage can make you feel like you’re dying, as if you were in cardiac arrest. The manifestation may come in the form of a panic attack: the memory of someone beloved will register in the brain, as if you’re viewing a Polaroid in your psyche.

Then the memory travels down into the heart, searing in its delivery as it journeys through all your vessels and then passes through the valves of the heart. Such memories are insidious; they burrow their way into every nook and cranny and once positioned and situated, they hold fast and don’t let go. Unless, of course, a more wonderful memory comes along, dislodging the old one from its far too comfortable position…

You see, the heart is a fragile organ. The memories we hold inside it – including all the terrible, lasting memories that knock the wind out of us and make you wish you could dig your own grave and lie in it, waiting for someone to pour the soil on the top of your head – are never fully erased. They just fade in intensity over time. And that’s the most important thing to remember about the heart: even if you’re feeling horribly bad in the moment – like all is hopeless and you have no idea how you’re even going to get out of bed, let alone cope with the emotional fallout – you will find that as time passes, the memories of your heart won’t haunt you as much as they did when the pain was still fresh. The memories still exist, but they become distant, like whispers from another life.

We get angry with ourselves, because we are so insistent that had we seen the warning signs, we would have never allowed our hearts to get broken. We think we’ve said or done something to deserve the pain. We beat ourselves up. We go through stages of disappointment, sadness, anger, self-loathing, self-harm. At times, destruction seems an easier path than rebuilding.

But the pain is necessary experience. And when our hearts are let go from one person, then we are free to love another. And you want someone who loves you for you.

Love is the most beautiful thing we as human beings can experience. Never, ever lose your faith in love.

Song Analysis #32: Stephen Duffy featuring Nigel Kennedy – Music in Colors

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Title: ‘Music in Colors’
Where to find it: ‘Music in Colors’ (1993, Parlophone)
Performed by: Stephen Duffy featuring Nigel Kennedy
Words by: Stephen Duffy

Over the last 6 weeks, it’s like someone has pressed the fast forward button on my life, with so much personal and professional drama and changes swirling around me like I’ve been caught up in a twister. Before last weekend, a musician friend of mine who lives in Brooklyn posted one of those ‘Occupy Facebook’ memes in which we were to get friends who liked our status updates to post a video of an artist we liked. One of my writers was game, so I purposely gave her an artist I loved but I knew she knew nothing about: Stephen Duffy’s post-Duran Duran band, The Lilac Time.

You’ve probably never heard of Stephen Duffy. Or if you have, you probably only know that he’s written a number of chart-topping hits with Robbie Williams, including the #1 ‘Radio’. But before all of that, he started out as a shy teenager in Birmingham, trying to emote into a microphone while his buddies Nicholas Bates and Nigel Taylor played their instruments behind him. Nicholas Bates and Nigel Taylor became Nick Rhodes and John Taylor, who went on to stardom as Duran Duran without Stephen, who quit early on because he had no interest in becoming famous. Or so he says.

I could say much more on the matter, as I know a lot about Stephen’s back catalogue and personal and professional history (probably too much!), but he came into my mind when I presented his band The Lilac Time to my friend, I realized I had almost forgotten that he was really the first songwriter I’d come into personal contact with. When he and Nick Rhodes decided to start a side project called The Devils, I was the first person to make them a fan site.

The internet was still relatively new then, and he seemed every bit as intrigued about what I was writing about them as I was intrigued about his songwriting. I have an email of his somewhere in a drawer; I’d printed it because I almost didn’t believe Stephen Duffy had written to me. The subject line read, innocuously, “Me and you”, which made me laugh. In it, he said, “Thanks for calling me a lyrical genius!” (the only person I’ve ever anointed with that superlative), and also, “thanks for all your work with the website and everything i really appreciate it and i’m happy that you like what i do too.” That was really sweet of him. I spent far too much money and effort buying second-hand albums and imports to feed my Duffy / Lilac Time obsession – the most memorable moment was biting my nails, trying to win a rare piece on eBay while on holiday, tapping furiously on keys at an internet cafe in Vancouver, my father looking on, scowling at me to get off the computer – that him acknowledging me in an email and saying thank you made it all worth it. It’s funny how a few short years later, I am now getting similar thank yous from musicians who thank me for writing about them and helping their careers.

To me, Stephen is one of those great unsung heroes of popular music – only the people who have sought him out or accidentally “found” him have been blessed by his music, and in some ways, I think that is the way it should be. Even though it’s been over a decade since I was introduced to him by a shadowy London musician who I came to love, he’s still one of my ‘little secrets’. I don’t think Stephen or the Lilac Time would ever be massively popular with the mainstream anyway; his intention in songwriting was never to become famous, as leaving Duran Duran while they were on the precipice of breaking into the business is clear proof. No, Stephen Duffy’s writing is for the rare musical connoisseur, and those who find him and his music come to love and cherish what he does.

First, the words:

I hear music in colors, I see it in the air
And all the sisters and brothers, I see them there
When all the lights go out, all over town
And all the pretty fireworks fall down
I’m waiting for a wake up call, I don’t try to sleep
I watch fluorescent second hand creep.

You know I love another, does it bother you?
Do you think that one love is good enough for two?
The pure pain of jealousy a piercing fear
Passed right through her soul like a spear
We all have deeply hidden chords that someone else must strike
To hear the very ringing of the psyche.

I hear you split up with your boyfriend
And he seemed unconcerned
Love’s a fickle fortune, babe
Every penny must be earned
We’re astronauts, we’re angels, but we’re never coming down
For all the gods who passed us by have drowned
The boogaloo of modern verse is dancing in her mind
Still very much the nervous kind.

Do you like this kind of party? I don’t know why I came
They take winning so seriously but never play the game
I can smell the powder of your makeup, your perfume
Sense you when you’re in another room
Are they still talking about furniture
‘Bout one or other chair
I can only see you sitting there.

I see you in colors
I see you in colors
I see you in colors
I see you in colors
I see you in colors
I see you in colors
I see you in colors
I see you in…

Now, the analysis:

Depending on the day, ‘Music in Colors’ is either my favourite Stephen Duffy-related album, or in second place to 1999’s ‘Looking for a Day in the Night’. I could spend weeks analysing each and every song on either of these albums, as they are all tied tightly up with the first time I fell in love. But YouTube helped me choose which song to analyse, as the title track is the only one I could find as a stream.

‘Music in Colors’ is an interesting Stephen Duffy album for a number of reasons. For one, he enlisted the help of violinist Nigel Kennedy, which made all the numbers, including the elegantly named ‘Transitoires’, sophisticated instrumental segues, a cut above the rest. While violins and fiddles are all over the place in folk and even pop albums these days, that wasn’t the case back in 1993. The song is over 7 minutes long, but the last 2 minutes are an extended instrumental outro, with minimal words, that sounds to my ear like the culmination of how someone in love feels about his object of his affection. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. Also, that’s not a typo you’ve read: the album is called ‘Music in Colors’ and is spelled the American English way.

If you’re looking for a standard song structure with verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, outro, sorry, you’re out of luck in most of Stephen’s songs. He just doesn’t write that way most of the time. The way I read it, ‘Music in Colors’ is written in a very stream of consciousness way, and he’s very poetic as he does it. I’m going to look at each “verse” individually.

I hear music in colors, I see it in the air
And all the sisters and brothers, I see them there
When all the lights go out, all over town
And all the pretty fireworks fall down
I’m waiting for a wake up call, I don’t try to sleep
I watch fluorescent second hand creep.

If what my ex said is true, I understand that Stephen dealt with substance abuse and “I hear music in colors” is less about synesthesia and more about the colors you hallucinate when you’re on drugs, and being unable to sleep relates to being on too many uppers and finding it physically impossible to relax. Can’t say I relate. Of course, there are many reasons for insomnia that aren’t related to drug use, including unfortunate turns in the affairs of the heart, which could also explain verse 1, since we’ll get to heartbreak later in the song. If you didn’t even consider this song in the context of drug use, all you would notice is the gentle lilt of his voice, which I absolutely adore.

You know I love another, does it bother you?
Do you think that one love is good enough for two?
The pure pain of jealousy, a piercing fear
Passed right through her soul like a spear
We all have deeply hidden chords that someone else must strike
To hear the very ringing of the psyche.

He admits that he loves someone else, but there’s this other woman in the picture. In fact, it is her he’s singing to and she’s at the same party he is, and her memory haunts him, even if she’s not in the same room. “We all have deeply hidden chords that someone else must strike / to hear the very ringing of the psyche.” This seems to suggest that the woman he’s actually with is *not* the woman who pushes his buttons but instead this woman who haunts him. At the same time, I can’t tell if the second verse is meant to be sadistic or loving. He asks the second woman if it bothers her he’s with someone else: either she cares and it hurts her deeply, or she doesn’t care, in which case he’s trying to get a reaction out of her.

I hear you split up with your boyfriend
And he seemed unconcerned
Love’s a fickle fortune, babe
Every penny must be earned
We’re astronauts, we’re angels, but we’re never coming down
For all the gods who passed us by have drowned
The boogaloo of modern verse is dancing in her mind
Still very much the nervous kind.

Maybe he’s gained confidence in acting this way towards her because the second woman lost her boyfriend. In fact, he’s being quite callous with, “Love’s a fickle fortune, babe / Every penny must be earned”. This makes me think she never treated him well at all and he’s pulling the “what goes around, comes around” card. ‘Astronauts’ refers to the amazing 1991 Lilac Time album, I’m pretty sure, and in this context, he’s speaking of ascending like astronauts and angels, and being in a good place emotionally.

Do you like this kind of party? I don’t know why I came
They take winning so seriously but never play the game
I can smell the powder of your makeup, your perfume
Sense you when you’re in another room
Are they still talking about furniture
‘Bout one or other chair
I can only see you sitting there.

Or so I thought. The fourth and last verse makes it sound like he’s still very much in love with her. He’s dragged himself to this party and thinking he was going to be strong, but in actuality, just recognising her makeup and perfume, even if she’s not physically present, is affecting him. Her ghost still lingers: “Are they still talking about furniture / ‘Bout one or other chair / I can only see you sitting there.”

And then where does Stephen leave you? In this swirling, gorgeous outro that envelopes and cuddles you like a blanket. While there are stabs of emotional pain, the underlying message of this song for me, as I feel for the whole album, is one of love. Unrequited or not, it’s pretty gorgeous.

Lastly, the song, in stream form. As mentioned earlier, the title is ‘Music in Colors’ and whoever posted this stream made a mistake in typing the title out as ‘Music in Colours’. A real Duffy fan would never have made that mistake. It’s even wrong in Spotify. (Facepalm.)

Edit 21 September 2015: The account that posted a stream of the song has now been deleted. Listen to the song on Spotify below. I’ve also embedded the entire ‘Music in Colors’ album too, which frankly is a masterpiece.