A Blog-like Entity

18 oct 06

do you miss soundgarden?

i don't exactly "miss" them. i can still listen to them, and will right now, as i write a paper on soundgarden -- only fitting.

for those of you who don't know or care, soundgarden is a 1990s prog metal band (i'm just waiting for the fallout from that categorization), that's lumped in with pearl jam, soundgarden, mudhoney, and others i can't think of, as part of the "grunge" wave.

prog metal is the best way to see them, i think -- they're clearly heavy metalish (yelled vocals, distorted guitar), and they do odd things (tunings, rhythms, song "movements", non-blues-based riffs, etc) of course, i'm sure you can come up with an example of a band who employs distorted guitar and yelled vocals who is agreed upon by 90% of rock fans as non-metal.

also, they have long hair, which makes them heavy metal. the first band that i can remember that crossed the "metal band with short hair" barrier was helmet, ca. 199...1? 199something. since then, it's been done a lot, usually with only one or two members of a band sporting preppy cuts, or no hair at all (phil anselmo of pantera, for instance).

observing uncertain and fuzzily-boundaried categories in rock music makes for a good introduction to postmodernism.

but yeah, i like soundgarden, i guess. i used to like them a lot more, when i was in high school and "badmotorfinger" came out. "room a thousand years wide" is still one of my favorite rock songs, in part because i think the lyrics are wonderfully evocative (i feel like a kid in junior high school, showing his parents how cool his favorite metal band is, and then they say "yes dear"). anyway, these lyrics give me chills:

Listen, hear, he is inside
One who lives while others lie
I close my eyes and walk a thousand years
A thousand years that arent mine
It seems hes near me as I walk
One who loved what love denied
He lives these years that I walk blind
All these years cannot be mine
Tomorrow begat tomorrow
Begat tomorrow
Begat tomorrow
A thousand doors a thousand lies
Rooms a thousand years wide
He walks in the cold sun and wind
All these years will not begin
Tomorrow begat tomorrow
Begat tomorrow
Begat tomorrow

the "tomorrow begat tomorrow" lines are trite and lame.

i think i like the ideas of walking for a thousand years, and of "cold sun and wind". also, measuring distance in time is always neat, as in "room a thousand years wide"; that's a big room. i always picture a cartoon i drew when i was 15 or so of this anorexic, long-limbed, nose-less creature gazing off into space as it walked along. that'd be funny if i still had it. i have no idea what the song is about -- i hope no-one asks me "what's the song 'room a thousand years wide' about?", because then i will kill myself.

soundgarden is progressive metal, and you can do nothing about this proclamation, except weep and gnash your teeth.