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‘jesus christ.’ (the indie band) – is this really what you want?

do you know how fucking depressing it is to have this song relate to you so much?
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i am going to ‘bump’ this post because i feel like i didn’t elaborate enough (or at all). let me admit it–i love this song. i think musically and lyrically it is extremely well made. yes, it may be entirely ‘ironic’ or whatever, but that doesn’t hide the fact that tao lin and carles made this song together. that doesn’t hide the fact that this song is very carefully put together. the attention to detail and buildup and breakdown and everything seem so professionally done. carles and tao lin are the two best writers of our generation and this is them coming together to create a song, and they sure created a good one.

the first half of the song is mainly samples of people (including carles) speaking/arguing over the phone. it’s presumably a couple that are breaking up or fighting or whatever. my favorite part of the song is the verse of a guy talking that kind of sounds like michael cera: “after a while you will go home, and you won’t call and i won’t either, and we’ll forget each other/and after a while i won’t like you anymore and we’ll forget each other/and after a while you will be beautiful and alone inside of your coffin, and i’ll be cold and alone inside of my coffin”. say what you will about this song, but this stanza, particularly the final line, is fucking powerful. it’s real. it’s as real as any tao lin novel you will read. and after awhile you will be beautiful and alone inside of your coffin, and i’ll be cold and alone inside of my coffin. pretty accurate way to sum up the feeling one gets from a lost/broken relationship. that’s a tao lin line if i ever heard one. i can hear him saying that out loud in my head right now. i can’t let my relationship with joni fade away like this. “we’ll forget each other.” i don’t want to ever forget joni. but it’s bound to happen if she keeps whatever she is doing up/makes it so. with time and deprivation of something, anyone can forget almost anything. i don’t want to have to grow up without and away from joni.

the whole ‘relationship dialogue’ of this song just sounds so real. almost too real, like they are actual things the two have said (or been said to) in a fight and are using them as lyrics in their own song. that element of realism is really what grabs me in this song, and it makes me able to empathize deeply with them, especially considering everything i have been through and documented on this blog. take, for example, these lines: “there’s something wrong with you/there’s something wrong with me too/i just don’t know why you’re doing this.” i just don’t know why you’re doing this. nobody is perfect. everybody makes mistakes (via hannah montana). that doesn’t mean you can’t forgive me. give me another chance. this is what carles is pleading for. another chance. let’s work through our problems. we are/were together for a reason. i love you.

then, about three minutes in, it erupts into a dance-pop song that sounds far better than most dance-pop songs you might hear on a day-to-day basis. it even features carles singing. he has a pretty nice singing voice. i’m having trouble thinking of songs to compare it to–right now all i can think of is ’586′ by new order. the changes in the songs are kind of similar in that they both start out slow, then when they reach a ‘tipping point’ they just explode into an electronic dance party. the songs kind of touch on the same things lyrically too. “can you hear me calling you” is the prominent line in ’586′. both songs are about failing relationships and blah blah blah enough talk about new order. now that i think of it, i definitely hear a big lo-fi-fnk influence in the song. that must have been a big influence on the song, sonically. i found out about that band through one of carles’s podcasts, where he played ‘city’ by lo-fi-fnk. i’m just going to quote carles’s entire singing portion because i feel like it explains itself. my words wouldn’t do it justice. “i don’t know what to do when you look at me, i don’t know what to say to you/cause there’s nothing i can do for you/i don’t know how to say the shit that needs to be said to get through to you/i don’t know what to do when you look at me, like i did something wrong to you/i don’t know what to say to you/i don’t know what i’m supposed to say to you/what did you expect from me?/you’ve been living in a god damn dream world and you don’t know what the fuck you want.” i will say just one thing: joni, you’ve been living in a god damn dream world, and you don’t know what the fuck you want. you really don’t. you really fucking don’t.

every time i finish listening to it, i can’t help but wonder ‘will i ever get to hear more of this project?’ i really hope so. i remember reading in a tao lin interview a while ago that carles is still working on it, but is very meticulous and does not want to rush anything (and also is very busy with hipster runoff and other writing). i just hope whatever he is working on sees the light of day. i hope this happens before hipster runoff starts to fade in relevancy. people say it has ‘dipped’ in quality but it’s relevancy has never been higher and the site is very important to the indie music scene and internet in general. ‘jesus christ.’ (the indie band) is not just a great name for a music project. it is, plain and simple, a good music project! i am so glad this song exists. not only does it let me get to know carles and tao lin better, but it lets me connect with them on a sonic level. ever since i first heard it, i thought this song was really good, but now that i can relate to it more, i can’t help but think that this is one of the most underrated songs of the past 10 or so years. i believe if it hadn’t been released by the author of hipster runoff, it would have been widely seen as what it is–a really really good pop song. but because of who made it, people have to take it with a grain of sand and not take it as seriously as it deserves and demands to be taken seriously.