Some of the biggest trauma of my life occurred in July. Sexual abuse and mental breakdowns of course, but also, my marriage ended in July, when Bryce drove off in a 26 foot U-Haul to Chicago, leaving me in my new and empty apartment, crying because of how scared I was into my Papa John’s pizza. I remember sobbing for about 10 minutes straight, sniffling a little, looking down at my supreme veggie lovers, and saying to myself “You can do this”.
And I did.
But this post isn’t about that. This post is about context. Because context is important.
I had never heard of The Books before I had met V. He had, I suppose still has, a very wide range when it comes to the music he listens to. When we first got together, he was listening to a lot of garage and neo-psychedelia, some of which I already liked (like Ty Segall and Kurt Vile), some I had heard of, but never explored (Deerhunter and White Fence), and some that I had never been exposed to (The Microphones and Black Moth Super Rainbow, which will have its own post, I’m sure). The Books fall into the far latter.
The first time I listened to The Lemon of Pink 1 it was mid May 2020. I had seen V post about them in the Abnormal Music Facebook group he introduced me to. Something about the cover of the album seemed vaguely familiar, and as I was on the bus on the way to work at the time, thought this would be a great use of my time to check them out. After all, all music a person listens to is like a little window into their soul, or at least their psyche. I wanted to peer into all the little windows and see all the little bits of light I could.
I set the album up on Spotify, and I….did not get it.
It was unstructured. Atonal. Even *shudder* pretentious. A cacophony of sampled conversations in various languages, noises that don’t even really fit the bare structure of a lone banjo lazily strumming the same refrain, almost as if it was being improvised. Strange voices saying the name of the song, out of time violin and trumpet riffs, the lilting piano rhythm driving home what I assumed would be the point, if I could find one. I was about to go to work, at a job I didn’t necessarily comprehend the misery it caused. I was focused, and tired, and already ready to deal with the day’s bullshit. I chalked it up to the song, and by extension, the album, just not being my thing. I turned off the album, probably put on the Dirtbombs or something to hype me up, and didn’t think of the album, or the band, again.
Until July.
I visited V every 3 months. And every time I left it seemed like it got a little harder, and a little easier all at once. Easier because we were really, successfully having a long distance relationship that I felt fulfilled and cared for and listened to, harder because each time I fell a little more in love, and felt like I was leaving half of my heart behind in the dusty little plateau of west Texas.
July we had big plans. V had gotten the most time off he had been able to get since I had been visiting. We were going to Ft. Davis, Alpine, Marfa. There is so much more I will write about this trip, it had so many profound little moments that I thought would live in my heart and take root, but now, have come to resemble more like flies in amber – as unchanging little time capsules for scenes, conversations, reveries that will never be again.
I want to write about all the little memories here, but don’t want to get too lost in time, not in this post, anyway.
We ended up at Hotel Paisano for one night. As with a lot of things with V, Dan is hopelessly intertwined. He was so excited that we were in a town he had always wanted to visit, a town he had only experienced through James Dean, through writing his own music about a wholly imagined version. He was completely delighted we were staying at Paisano.
“Next year” he said to me, after the trip, “Me and my lady, and you and your fella should go on a big roadtrip. We’ll drive out from Birmingham, meet you in Lubbock, we’ll drive out to Marfa, sleep in a teepee.” None of those relationships, or Dan, for that matter, would exist by next year.
We rested. We swam. We ate a dinner outdoors at the hotel in the waning light of day, sneaking photos of the other and giggling about it later. We laughed about how out of place we looked, at this bougie little hotel in the mountains, we laughed about not caring.
We walked to our little room – each room had a little fire pit and a patio in the back. It was almost midnight, and perfectly still except for the echoes of distant talking – from hotel guests, people on the street, barely audible. We smoked cigarettes as conversation flowed, as it always did – from light to heavy, back to light again. We held hands, almost absentmindedly, because at that point, after months and months of love, and years and years of friendship, that’s where they felt like they belonged. Conversation slowed naturally, both of us looking up at a sky so full of stars, out here so far away from the cities that ruined us or the jobs that killed us or the past trauma and relationships, like balls and chains, that follow you wherever you go.
He lit another cigarette, and changed the music. The Lemon of Pink.
Context is certainly important. Because this time, it was the most achingly beautiful song I had ever heard.
Holding V’s hand as we looked at the stars, trying not to fall asleep. Ever have one of those nights that you wish would never end? V and I had so many of them – going to Whataburger at 3am, driving for the sake of it, holding each other in his bed with the lights on, both of us very much minutes from slumber but too stubborn to turn out the light. Like everything would disappear if our consciousness did.
I looked up at V, and looked at the stars. Felt the warmth of his hand in mine, the cool Texas evening, the pluck of the banjo and all the once cacophonous voices melting in with the voices of the people in the hotel and on the street. Like an odd little lullaby for our odd little love. And then her voice cuts through the noise, the banjo stops –
“We went through hell, we went through hell, all’s well that ends well, well, well well, well, well….well”
I thought it was one of the most pure and perfect moments I had ever experienced. And my heart soared thinking that maybe this could be one of many experiences, many soft, quiet, intimate instances that we would look back on over the course of our long, happy lives.
You know how that song ends.
As fate or the universe or providence would have it, I’m writing this on the year anniversary of that night in Marfa. I don’t really believe in those things anymore.
The context is tweaked a little. The voices sound a little bit more out of step. The banjo sounds a little less comfortable, a little more melancholy, the piano a little more weighted – more odd little funeral dirge than odd little lullaby. The lines “We went through hell, we went through hell…”, which used to feel uplifting – triumphant even – now feel like foreshadowing.
It’s hard to parse what changed from that night, a year ago. I don’t understand, and I don’t think I ever will, going between thoughts of how I could’ve possibly fucked this up, how he could’ve fucked this up, how this could’ve ever been fucked up. Not knowing how much the context of the song, and the memory, would morph and change. And that regardless of the deep pain, I want to collect and preserve something that still is somehow so beautiful.
“All’s well that end’s well, well well well well well well….”
It could be “well, well, well, here we are again, in misery”. Or it could be that all is really well, or will be well, or could end well, I reassure you. Context is important, I always felt that. I suppose what I didn’t realize is how much could change, and yet stay so miraculously the same.
