“I, Will Wait” (Pere Ubu)

Sky and sun are our brutish limits. But training your gaze toward the ground may be more rewarding, if only for the lack of some pay(off). Imagine a city—any city—with both the apotheosis of civilization and its requisite nadir simultaneously on display for all to see. In its “cracks” and “in the seams of the world,” there are “secret scenes” or stagings that produce no “doubt.” Orient yourself toward “practicalities,” which are “possibilities” for those that live close to the earth. Commit to imagining perfectibility and “wait,” resisting the labor of literal realization. Set your “I” to “idle,” and will yourself to live downward. Transformative orientation.

“That’s Me” (Theo Beckford)

One can easily conjure the scene. It involves one of the inventors of the ska rhythm—the man whom Skatalite Tommy McCook called “Skavoovie”—a pianist who hasn’t been paid for his last record date and subsequently confronts his producer and draws a line in the studio’s dirt floor. “That’s me,” on this side, and “that’s you,” on the other. We’re not the same, and therefore you owe me: “I want my money” and, when you’re ready, “call me about it.” One might call this trax crass and materialistic (and perhaps it’s no more than a studio afterthought, since it ended up as a b-side), but there’s also something about this crude form of spacing that cannot be wished away. If we could replace “me” and “you” with just “us” or “one,” we might be able to eliminate the daily dilemmas of communication, obligation, and economy. But “we” remain differently-related: even as “I” try to indebt “you,” “I” remain fatally dependent upon “you” to hear my call. Our mortal differences, no matter how slight they seem, are not expungeable, and even when “me” and “you” converts to “I and I” a decade later in rasta-talk, attempting a drastic and equalitarian pronominal reduction, each speaker still necessarily leaves some space open for the conjunction and the second iteration of “I.”

“The Goin’ Gets Tough from the Getgo” (Ween)

The “getgo” can only exist in the “middle of a situation”: there are no beginnings and only a persistent midpoint. The medium of present relation (the “rules”) replicate so that one can only learn the “same lessons once again.” There’s no architectural promise here, only a slum-dwelling within another. Rising bass topples over onto itself; we’ll always lose “time” (and time again) when enmeshed with the “goin’.”

“Stranger in Paradise” (Tony Bennett)

This track, from Kismet, amounts to a study in anti-utopianism: ultimate achievement of paradise is said to have nothing to do with “wonder” or being a “stranger” (these are merely unpleasant and transitory states). So, really, utopia is just like everyplace else: turning the “rare” unceasingly into the “commonplace” and reducing unprecedented “danger” to everyday reality through traditional forms of facial recognition.

“Funkentelechy” (Parliament)

Funk’s not about freedom of speech since that enterprise is grounded on the possibility of future dividends (or “possible funkability” funded by “high finance”). Rather, funk is always fully realized and can “be scored everyday”; and it’s surely not “domestically produced” or given, but a given, free of charge. More succinctly, funk is a predisposition without a constitution and an affirmation of a possible being decoupled from sovereignty. This would be the freedom which can never be granted or purchased, and the dissolution of any (self)governance is premised on everyone “hav[ing] change for funk” or, more directly, untethering pleasure from self-care.

“Me and Bobby McGee” (Janis Joplin)

Of course: “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” And this seeming misprision (when compared to the Kristofferson lyrics): “Nothin’ don’t mean nothin’ honey if it ain’t free.” That is: nothing only gets interesting if and when it doesn’t cost or hurt. Until then, it’s not yet the promise of nothing, but a something of negative value. Misguidedly, however, the singer seeks a home for Bobby, and eventual reunion, through barter/trade, turning away from finitude’s infinite loss/gift. Thoreauvian, in all the wrong ways (though: are there any right ones, ontologically?).

“Behemoth” (Tad)

As with any bloodsport, ideas concerning representation and authenticity are both solidified and dislodged. Tad’s ascendance came with the attendant Sub Pop marketing, firming up the label’s reputation while playing up an image of the band, as Kim Thayil contends, that deviates too far from their “smart[ness].” This radio-unfriendly trax insists, however, on the “strange new sound” that emerges from such forms of violence. Rather than “stay[ing] to hear” what’s been produced for “no reason,” those subject to the “behemoth” of institutionalized sound—or the vice-like “leather straps” cinching the cranium—will ideally live to see it “fall down.” This isn’t an undressing and it’s certainly not a recovery narrative. Occasional fuzz bass, solid-state distortion, and tightly controlled distortion erupt from within. Anticipating the birth of grunge, we witness its birth and evisceration. The necessary joy of quixotic, preemptive sonic battles.

“Jailhouse Rock” (Elvis Presley)

It seems right that rock’n’roll’s first principle should be its prison ontology. Elvis was in the jailhouse and Bill Haley was a slave to working hours. So we “rock” because we’re stuck in Parchman Farm, or on a chain gang, or queer in a world of compulsory heterosexuality, or stuck behind the Iron Curtain. We don’t ask permission. It’s intentionally disruptive. Sometimes what we do may not rise above putting an occasional spanner in the works, or utilizing “the weapons of the weak,” as James C. Scott puts it. But, other times, rocking might rise to the level of the general strike, and make the walls and borders of the world tremble. So it’s strange to remember that Elvis’ “Jailhouse Rock” (1957) involves a rock show staged and strenuously promoted by the warden and capable of making the prisoners complacent enough to forego escape so they can listen to the beat combo. Rock here is exposed as nothing but an aural strain of the spectacle, as conceptualized from Machiavelli to Debord. So perhaps we’re all in jail, in one way or another, but rock’n’roll, as soon as it calcified and corporatized, became one of our wardens.

“War” (Henry Cow)

War is a product of the “partial mind,” clouded by “dark obscurity.” One could read this Hegel’s way, since he argues that the State “is most supremely its own” (has a truly self-sufficient and complete identity) only at the moment of War. But instead of critiquing identity, which cannot be closed without adopting a warlike posture toward the other, the Cow’s disciplinary Marxism maliciously heckles all patriotic persons as dumb lemmings (“people get what they deserve”) who should have been able to make themselves whole without all the drum beating, trumpet playing, and gore. A project both impossible and endlessly, potentially murderous; or, ranting become its own object.

“Sukiyaki” (Kyu Sakamoto)

Originally entitled “I Look Up When I Walk,” singer answers loneliness by preventing the spilling of tears. Walking (in winter) “beyond” the clouds and sky and avoiding the “shadow” of night, the problem of feeling “alone” is that it must have its origins in the familial/familiar; by having the eyes serve as bowls, truly, the prismatic effect of looking through tears possibly allows access to “happiness,” but this can only come about through willful delusion. As the biggest hit by a Japanese act in America (number one in between Leslie Gore’s “It’s My Party” and The Essex’s “Easier Said than Done”), this is the sweet stew(ing) produced by the tether of (ascetic) love.