Luna’s “Lost In Space” is a classic happy-sad song, both
musically and lyrically: it cannot be reduced to either of these names for
moods. Rather, it explores a primal ineffable feeling prior to being divvied up by language into discrete names
for moods (or diagnoses of a blessing or affliction). Structurally, it’s a very
simple, even sparse song: verse chorus, verse chorus, instrumental interlude
and chorus; 3 simple Lou-Reed-esque chords throughout—with no chordal variation
between verse and chorus. Yet it shows how a lot can be done with very simple
elements; even though the song doesn’t officially begin with the chorus, that’s
what many listeners hear first.
The Chorus
Its musical and lyrical hook
is the catchy sing along chorus, which you have to hear in time, with the
music, to grasp the meaning, and the feeling, of.
You heard it all
before, they said your case was tragic
You heard it all
before, now they say it’s magic
The lyrics seem simple enough, and may even remind one of
the fairy-tale of the Ugly Duckling who becomes the Swan, but “Lost In Space”
goes beyond such a fairy tale “Happy Ending” to suggest the swan song, the final cry of the dying
swan. While this simple “tragic/magic” end rhyme certainly seems more uplifting than were it the other way around—a feeling
which is heightened by the musical arrangement’s brightening as is moves from
the sadder, introspective, feel of the verses into this anthemic chorus (which
Luna often played faster, and more rocking, live than it was on the recorded
version).
Indeed, this end rhyme has been used so many times it has
almost become meaningless (and certainly there are countless songs that render
this rhyme ridiculous), and Dean even sings them in such a way. Part of Dean
Wareham’s brilliance with these simple, understated, lyrics and vocal delivery,
is to also point out the ridiculousness of such simple binary thinking/talking.
It may take a few listens, but once hooked,
the words “they said” and “they say” take on the primary emphasis.
They have changed,
but your life may stay the same. As they change what they call you from
tragic (the isolated hero who dies alone) to this magical, generative being,
there’s always the possibility that this naming,
this assessment or diagnosis, can, in fact, change your case, and maybe even your essence (if you believe you have
one—which you may not, if you’re “lost in space.”)
But because “you’ve heard it all before,” it’s hard to
believe what they said before (your
case was tragic) or what they say
now. The lyrics don’t exactly spell out why
they changed what they say (or think): was it something you did or said? Or was
it something they finally perceived (whether truer, or more illusory than their
previous perceptions)? But does this change in their perception and/or
conception of your case really
suggest comfort (or even ‘hope’) for the “you” of the song?
The Verses
As with many songs with catchy, sing along choruses, these
lines are often the only lines of the song many casual listeners know, or have
made it into long-term memory. They sink in, but on repeated listens, they call
attention to the verses, especially if you’re looking for insights into
unanswered questions about the significance of the chorus’s words.
The verses are certainly sad; perhaps tragic, but definitely
ridden with pathos. The singer is non-judgmental and sympathetic with the
struggle the “you” is going through, as if he’s also talking to himself. Since
the sadness is at least as present in the second verse (after the chorus) as in
the first, it shows how the chorus (despite their now calling you magic) didn’t
really change much.
There is little lyrical variation between the two verses,
but while the first verse is more like an impressionistic puzzle, the second
verse hints at a story, or at least a situation that “you” are going through.
It only takes one line to create the keystone that holds the lyrics together.
As Dean slowly stretches the simple sentence “You need/ time off/ for good/ behavior” over four distinct musical
phrases (with pauses between each phrase for the riff), the weight of this
sentence is emphasized more than the other lines.
This forces me to hear this “everyday” phrase as I’ve never
heard it before, with a suggestive richness and poetic ambiguity it
conventionally lacks. It’s the only line in the song that expresses what “you” need, and lack. But these needs can be taken two different ways: “you
need/time off” first suggests you need a vacation. But “you need time off for
good behavior” comes from prison, in
which “good behavior” can knock months, or even years, off your sentence. In
the song, the sentence itself is
excrutiatingly long, as the singer purposefully stretches the word “be-hav-ior”
out, so it takes awhile for its mystery to sink in. But once I realize it comes
from prison, the entire song—including the chorus—takes on a darker
significance, in words at least.
If you’re a model prisoner (like, say, James Brown was, when
he formed a gospel band in prison to “sing songs for the Lord!”), you can get
such time off, but you need an authority figure to testify on your behalf that
your actions (or even inactions) can be deemed worthy of “good behavior.” You
need to show signs that you have “reformed” in ways that he, she, or they, take
as evidence for your fitness to return to the “real world” while you’re waiting
for your case to come up. How you
ended up in prison doesn’t matter (were you falsely accused? Or caught
red-handed?), but now that you’re here, can your actions be called “good
behavior?”
That’s the question!
Let The Hearing Begin
Judge: In
considering the case of this subject, is there any evidence to suggest that
this case is fit for being a productive member of society, of making an honest
buck? We will hear initial arguments from the state and from the prisoner’s
advocate:
Prosecutor: By
his own admission, this case is lazy, and even crazy…
Advocate:
Objection!
Judge: On what
grounds?
Advocate: Those
lines were never uttered in the first
person…they were uttered in the second person
Judge: Objection
over-ruled. The appellant clearly speaks of himself in the second person. (to
Prosecutor) Proceed.
Prosecutor: He
laziness is evident in his perpetual yearning for “something else”
he can’t even name. Even his fantasy heroes who he once
looked to as exemplary role models seem tame to him. He would rather be “crazy”
than “tame” and thus cannot contribute to society in a functioning, or even productive,
way. This case is “lost in space,” and will not listen to the advice of those
who are trying to help him. His actions present no evidence of any
rehabilitation, and clearly his sentence should not be shortened.
Judge: We will
now hear from the advocate:
Advocate: The
Prosecutor neglects to take into account all the evidence. The defendant is
clearly overworked. He certainly acts tame: he’s tired, and needs time off, in order to continue to
perform his exceptional, and exemplary—and even magical—duties that he has performed
in the penitentiary.
Prosecutor:
Objection!
Judge (wearily):
On what grounds?
Prosecutor: The
appellant is “tired” because he doesn’t work enough. He tires himself on
dreaming of “something else”….
Judge: Objection
Over-ruled. Immaterial. Delete that from the transcript (to advocate): Proceed:
Advocate: Let me
address that. It’s true the appellant has admitted under duress he’s both tired
and lazy, but only because others
have called him lazy. He was bearing false witness against himself. We need to
take the environmental factors into account. No matter how hard he tries, and
works, it’s still not good enough for some (glowers at the prosecutor). After
all, the term “lazy n-word,” (which is still used today, even in this penitentiary) was first used to
describe people who worked 60 plus hours a week in contrast to compulsory 24/7
slave-labor! If this prison claims to be truly a facility of rehabilitation,
rather than simply of punishment and confinement, we need to consider the
appellant’s justifiable tiredness in the light of his good behavior. The
defendant’s actions have clearly been harmless and his work ethic has been
exemplary!
Prosecutor: While
my esteemed colleague certainly argues eloquently and passionately on behalf of
the appellant, he weighs the appellant’s needs
much more heavily than his actions and
achievements. If we set this legal precedent, we’d consider the needs of much
more disruptive prisoners to be greater than their actions, and open up the
streets to clearly unreformed mass-murderers and rapists.
Advocate: The
appellant, as the prosecutor himself is well aware, is not a mass murderer or a
rapist. That’s a slippery slope argument. When he’s finished all his required
duties, he keeps to himself, writing and reading, and, when allowed, plays his
guitar. The prisoners and guards have been amazed by his brilliance.
Prosecutor: But
he exhibits a failure to commit to any specific role in society, and lacks a sense of personal grounding that
makes him unable to function in social settings!
Advocate: Not if
his needs are considered as well as his
abilities. Have you read his manuscripts? Have you heard his music? Record
labels and publishers are interested. They say it’s magic!
Prosecutor:
There’s a thin-line between magic and madness. Even if we grant that he’s
magic, that doesn’t mean he’s employable or could even function as a freeman in
society. I will conclude with a quote from no less of an authority figure on
civic society and poetry than Shakespeare:
The poet’s eye, in
fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from
heaven to Earth, from Earth to heaven.
And as imagination
bodies forth
The forms of things
unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes
and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and
a name. (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Scene 1, 12-18)
The appellant, however, is not even able to do this. He may know there’s something more, but he can’t even give it a name, much less a “local
habitation.” Sure, publishers and record labels are interested, but he doesn’t
even like that his heroes are being sold. I rest my case!
Advocate: He
doesn’t have to give it a “name” if he can give it a song! Furthermore, he doesn’t like the way they’re being sold; there’s a crucial difference. He’s
passive; he understands he needs someone to sell him. He’s letting me sell him.
Prosecutor: He’s
projecting his own depression and passivity onto his heroes. This also reveals
his delusions (and choice of heroes who died young or tragically). Survival
demands being tamed, whether someone else sells you or you’re able to sell
yourself!
Defendant: He’ll
get over it, once he’s out of this prison. I, too, rest my case.
Judge: Court adjourned.
A decision will be made on whether the appellant is granted his shortening of
sentence “with all deliberate speed” (http://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/6-legacy/deliberate-speed.html)
A Work Song or An
Introvert Anthem?
Of course, we don’t have to see the “you” as being in an actual prison (just as we don’t have to
see “Unchained Melody” or “I Shall Be Released” as about an actual prison). Placing
it in the context of any work in the so-called “free world” could also give it
a local habitation and a name. In such an interpretation, the need for time off
is simply the need for a vacation, or what I like to call “homework.” The “time
off” becomes part of the job--especially
if it’s your job to create magic (a
“crazy” job, but apparently the only one some of us can get).
As one who has spent my entire adult life laboring in the
culture industry, rather than in prison, I personally hear “you need/ time
off/for good/ be-hav-ior” as a defense of the dual-activities that both the
teaching and music businesses demand. For instance, as a musician, you have to
both perform and compose. As many musicians will attest, relentless touring can
get in the way of actually writing and recording the music, but at the same
time recording and writing the music can get in the way of performing. You’re working all the time, but these two
roles are very different. Ideally, they can feed each other symbiotically, as
many create their best records while
taking a brief break from a lengthy tour (i.e. Revolver and Rubber Soul,
as but two examples), but “time off” from a tour booker is often “time on” for
a music publisher or label who wants a new magical song. Without a balance between the two, it’s easy to feel “lost in
space.”
Likewise, in the college teaching industry, there’s a
symbiotic relationship between the activities you perform in the classroom
itself, and the homework (so-called “prep” of syllabi, or reading lists, and
grading papers and emailing students).
Most of us never would’ve been employed as college professors had we not
written books, and in order to write books, we need “time off” from teaching to
exhibit good behavior as an effective mediator of classroom discussions. And,
ideally, the kind of discussions one can facilitate as a teacher feed back
into the writing one creates. Without a balance between the two, it’s easy to
feel lost in space (which is why some of us can teach college exceptionally
well, but cannot teach high-school with its long hours, and little room for the
kind of intellectual and creative homework that allows us to be “magical” in
the classroom to people who appreciate it!).
In this sense, the song takes on a very personal
significance for me, as a plea for understanding---whether or not that was Dean Wareham’s attention—but I know others
who have highly personal, and very different interpretations of the song.
I can understand why some see this as an anthem of early 1990s “slacker culture,” the archetype of the lost-in-space 20-something sitting in a coffee shop with a huge unpaid college debt trying to figure out what the hell to do with their life—but it can be so much more. For me, much of what I say about “prison” becomes all too true of the “lost in space” reality I’ve been living as a context-less homelessman over the past year, but the song is not simply a complaint (and certainly having the privilege of covering the song with Dean & Britta themselves brought some “magic” into the potential tragedy of my life).
Conclusion: “It Must
Appear In Other Ways Than Words”
Though much of my interpretation emphasizes the sadness and
pathos in the lyrics, I still conclude it is a “happy-sad,” or even
“sad-happy" song. If the “tragic/magic” rhyme is ridiculous, Dean’s rendering
of it reveals the necessary ridiculousness
of such binary thinking that may be the only thing that can save one from being
lost-in-space.
Aside from the word “magic” in the chorus, there may not be
many words to suggest the magic, but
after the two verses are finished, and the second chorus ends with the word
“magic,” the final 33% of the song is devoted to a beautiful instrumental (that
is itself both happy and sad), before returning to the final chorus. This
chorus, perhaps more than any of the words in the song, is evidence of the
“magic” that can (perhaps) transcend the potential tragedy in the lyrics—so
when the chorus returns after the solo, there is a sense of transformation
there hadn’t been earlier. I wouldn’t call it a classic “happy ending,” like
conventional romantic comedies, but at the very least it’s a “problem comedy”
which “must appear in other ways than words” as Shakespeare’s Portia puts it (MV,
Act 5, Scene I, Line 139).
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