Paper i wrote (for class) on damien's music and cliche assumptions of true love

[Shillelagh]

And so it is…Not Everything it is Cracked up to be

The music of Damien Rice may sound like the melodic musing of the troubadours of old, but do not be fooled by his chivalrous voice and romantic arrangement of instruments. Damien’s ironic style is anything but the overplayed clichéd love songs or unrequited love songs that abuse our eardrums on a regular basis. Though his sound may be familiar, his lyrics are honest, original, and raw. In fact, Damien probably believes in most of the assumptions identified by Catherine Latterell, but that may also be his problem.
Once his lyrics are studied, it becomes apparent that his frustration is wrought from his trust in some form of those assumptions and that his relationships have not played out the way he had expected. In one of Damien’s songs he says, “What I want from this/ Is learn to let go/ I know not of you/ Of all that's been told/ Killers re-invent and believe/ And this leans on me, like a rootless tree” (Rootless Tree). In “Rootless Tree” he feels as if he was duped by society’s idea of the relationship and that he had bought into it and when he finally realizes that it is a fabrication he wants to rebuild his whole belief system. He is angry because he wants the assumption that love conquers all to be true, but he finally figures out that no matter how much he loves her it will not change the fact that he is in a dysfunctional relationship that cannot be salvaged, “**** you/ And all we've been through/ I said leave it/ It's nothing to you/ And if you hate me/ Then hate me so good/ That you can let me out/ Of this hell when you're around” (Rootless Tree). If Damien had read Latterell he would have known that “believing that true love conquers all can lead people to conclude wrongly that all differences between two people can or should be overlooked” and to get out of the relationship that was causing him so much pain (Latterell 265). Damien also struggles with another downside of the love conquers all assumption in “Rootless Tree”. Latterell says that people often see that because they are having problems must mean that they are in love because if their relationship can withstand obstacles it must be love and therefore worth holding on to. Damien refers to this in the line that says, “What I want from us is empty our minds/ We fake a fuss, and fracture the times/ We go blind when we've needed to see” (Rootless Tree). This lyric alludes to how they will pick fights with each other in order to blind themselves from the bigger problem that the relationship is not working. The belief that the relationship must be true love because it is surviving difficulties leads to a problem with another assumption, the notion that love is just sexual attraction.
After feeling jilted by the precepts about love that society planted in Damien’s head, he has since become jaded to the whole idea of love and has fully bought into the idea that love is just a physical, sexual, scientific, and primal instinct. In the song, “The Blower’s Daughter”, he has all the same feelings of love and longing but now has a cynical view of those emotions. The entire chorus is, “I can't take my eyes off of you/ I can't take my eyes off you/ I can't take my eyes off of you/ I can't take my mind off you/ I can't take my mind off you” (The Blower’s Daughter). From this lyric it sounds as if Damien is trusting the concept of love again, but then he finishes the song like this, “I can't take my mind off of you/ 'Til I find somebody new,” just so the audience knows that he is still skeptical and contemptuous of love (The Blower’s Daughter). Latterell says that the only examples of love in the media are relationships at their very beginning when they are new and passionate. Damien Rice seems to give the examples of how those relationships that start off hot and heavy always seem to end in resentment, desire, and jealousy. In the song “I Remember”, Damien falls in love at first sight, “I remember it well/ The first time that I saw/ Your head around the door/ 'Cause mine stopped working/ I remember it well/ There was wet in your hair/ I was stood in the stairs/ And time stopped moving” (I Remember). However, Damien stays true to form and after the relationship dissolves he is back to torturing himself trying to figure out how this whole love thing is supposed to work and why he keeps losing women. As he finishes the song, and assumingly the relationship, all he is left with is disdain and suspicion:
Nothing is taking me down/ Except you my love. Come all ye lost/ Dive into moss/ I hope that my sanity covers the cost/ To remove the stain of my love/ Paper maché.
Come all ye reborn/ Blow off my horn/ I'm driving real hard/ This is love, this is porn/ God will forgive me/ But I, I whip myself with scorn, scorn.
I wanna hear what you have to say about me/ Hear if you're gonna live without me/ I wanna hear what you want/ What the hell do you want?” (I Remember).

After listening to the spiraling depression Damien seems to throw himself into every time he gets involved with someone and it does not work out, a sensible person would think that he would give up on the idea of a soul mate. Not Damien, God bless the stubborn Irishman, he just will not quit. The reason he tears himself apart every time his love is unrequited is because he is still holding out for true love and his soul mate. Latterell says that it could be dangerous to view true love as soul mates. People sometimes lose their “sense of individuality and of having interests separate from those of their significant other” (Latterell 268). When this happens in a relationship, the person being viewed as the soul mate can sometimes take advantage of the other person because they feel as if they have all the control in the relationship. Then there are issues with power and possession. In Damien’s song “Cross-Eyed Bear” he deals with the issues of feeling possessed and dependent, and then rebelling against those feelings and freeing himself from those constraints. He first sings about feeling powerless, “So push me I'll fall/ If you pull me I'll drown/ If you're gonna be nailin me down/ I won't rise again” (Cross-Eyed Bear). Then he resists being controlled and gets out, even though he still has feelings for his girlfriend he feels that he has empowered himself by leaving her, “I was up on your wall/ Smaller than small/ In a half-painted frame/ The wood wouldn't stain/ I hope that reminds you/ Of the part you couldn't change in me” (Cross-Eyed Bear).
As far as if Damien believes that true love is forever is questionable. From the evidence in his song lyrics he probably would like to think that it is possible. Otherwise, what is the point of being here, anyway? However, considering his jaded experience with love and relationships, there is a good chance he has given up on true love and probably sticks to what is tangible. The silver lining to his struggles with love is that his pain seems to be his muse for creating beautiful works of art. Hopefully, for the sake of the art, he will continue to be a sad, jilted, angry, little man. He says it himself in “Then Go”, “Among the afflictions/ With which I've been marked/ I'm not so pretentious/ And not quite so dark/ I get the feeling you're bored with me/ And not through habit or frequency/And if there's someplace else you'd rather be/ Then go” (Then Go).


Bibliography

1. Damien Rice. 9. Heffa/Vector/Warner Bros., 2006.

2. Damien rice. O. Vector Recordings, 2003.

3. Eskimo Friends - A Damien Rice Fan Site. 20 Mar. 2009 <http://eskimofriends.com/lyrics.asp>.

4. Latterell, Catherine G. ReMix Reading and Composing Culture. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.

[borneoman]

^just a remark that someone did to me once after I used the same lyrics you did for Then Go. Apparently, the correct lyrics are: Among the afflictions/ With which I've been marked/ NONE so pretentious/ And NONE quite so dark

so he's talking about his afflictions, not about himself

[verenita]

it´s a respecable point of view. good luck with the paper.

[Moves-My-World]

I'm glad you put in the reference Damien made to someone blowing off his horn