the narrow road to furthest south

[steppenwolf]

Hello! Welcome! In the longstanding tradition of Rach's Footnotes, and with twt being bad for rambling, you'll have to suffer here with me instead. (You don't, this is wholly self-indulgent, I should be doing yuletide damnit.) I'm going through some stray thoughts, cut songs, album cover designs, general crying for the beloved Terror Tracks event hosted by Lorcan at terror_tracks. It's SUCH a fun idea and everyone's playlists and ideas are so good!!

-- caveat the first: I have basic bitch taste
-- caveat the second: for me a song is more about the music than the lyric if that makes sense
-- caveat the third: I don't actually use playlists for writing, but purposely putting something together was just such a fun project I couldn't pass it up

Ohhhkay! First up is a song & dance for my beloved Cherry:

the narrow road to furthest south

death, suicide

CLICK TO LISTEN - BACK COVER - CODE BY

A note on the type

The cover is, of course, based on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. All my covers will be based on something because I'm obnoxious like that. The 'triangle' has become Ponting's famous ice cave photo, with a lot of fussing over the glow and texture that the original has. The rainbow has been reversed because I sure don't think Cherry came out of this feeling like a million bucks! Proud to say that like a real nerd I recognised the back cover font without needing to look it up. (It's not that hard as I make it out to be.)

An easy joke to make would have been to call it Dark Side of the South, but for whatever reason I was thinking about Richard Flanagan's The Narrow Road to the Deep North (probably the, er, survivor's guilt). I realised only just while typing this that 'deep south's may have a different connotation to Americans & Lorcan who is a genius made the suggestion furthest south instead, et voila!

background noise

This was basically me going through my Sad Songs playlist and pulling out things I thought would suit Cherry. There's no real order to it beyond a broad 'oh it's sad sad' --> 'happier sad' movement, and could absolutely be shuffled (except for the last song). There's also no real theme to it beyond man.jpg.

thank you for the music

New Order, Ceremony

Picture me and then you start watching
Watching forever
Forever
Watching love grow, forever
Letting me know, forever

Kicking off with a very personal one, New Order being one of me faves (top 1% spotify thanku). This was one of the last songs written by Ian Curtis before he died, and the last song to be recorded. I don't know if Elegia might actually have fit better because it was written as a tribute to Ian, but I think there's something equally haunting about the last song, the last expedition, and equally fitting to Cherry's theme of losing & leaving behind. Barney had to figure out the lyrics because Ian didn't write them down, and Cherry had to figure out well everything.

I picked version 1 because it sounds rougher, rawer, more Joy Division than New Order. At points Worst Journey feels more polar party than Cherry. Definitely one of the more music-than-lyric ones, but there's something cheerily awful about the lyrics too, Heaven knows it's got to be this time.

Sleeping at Last, Saturn

You taught me the courage of stars before you left
How light carries on endlessly, even after death
With shortness of breath
You explained the infinite
And how rare and beautiful it is to even exist

UGLY CRYLAUGHING!!! THIS SURE IS A CHERRYBILL SONG!!!!!!!!!!!! I'd give anything to hear you say it one more time / That the universe was made just to be seen by my eyes????? COME ON BRO. And the last two stanzas where the Cherry-speaker is the one 'trying to explain the infinite', like, trying to take Bill's work into the world… being the one to take over his bird fetish, to be a friend to others (he wrote so many introductions man), to carry on the story of the party, even (especially) his shitty watercolours … to try and believe in the goodness of the world. Lies down rolls over.

Vienna Teng, The Last Snowfall

If this were the last slow curling
Of your fingers in my palm
If this were the last I felt you breathing
How would I carry on?

I feel like Vienna Teng will have a lot of songs for the winter party contingent crylaugh. I like the ifness of this song, which colours so much of Cherry's experience – like, it hasn't happened yet, he doesn't have to let it happen… this is not the last snowfall. AND YET. IT HAS. The ambiguity of what happened and Cherry's having to live with that fucks me up man!

⚓︎ The Longest Johns, Bones in the Ocean

As the souls of the dead live for'er in my mind
As I live all the years that they left me behind
I'll stay on the shore but still gaze at the sea
I remember the fallen and they think of me
For our souls in the ocean together will be

I guess this song kind of… begins the bridge towards acceptance, returning and asking forgiveness and finding the love. Sorry this sounds pretentious. Is a v beautiful song, & I think the one that anchors (ha pun) this whole thing.

Blur, Tender

Come on, come on, come on
Love's the greatest thing

I know this isn't everyone's cuppa tea – staring at the reddit thread that's like i fuckin hate tender bro – but it's one of my favourite songs. The rolling rhythm of the come on, come on, come on is wonderful to zone out to especially when you're all cried out and empty inside (not speaking from personal experience). I think it's supposed to be a sad song about Damon Albarn's breakup but the fact that its chorus is love's the greatest thing really like!!! It reminds me a lot of Cherry's 'there were good days too' thought.

Good Riddance (Time of your Life)

For what it's worth, it was worth all the while

Another entrant into the melancholy part of it – as sad as Cherry's story is, I do always think of him with love, y'know?? Not exactly redemption or closure, but a heart nevertheless. I think his line in WJ – "With all its troubles it is a good life." – is awfully similar to Birdie's "Under its worst conditions this earth is a good place to live in." – and conscious or subconscious I think it was meant. This has nothing to do with the song beyond that Good Riddance always makes me have this kind of feeling.

The Last Goodbye

To these memories I will hold
With your blessing I will go

Also a v deeply personal one, for reasons I shan't bother you with (I was born in 95, that might explain some of it). Cried like a baby when it first came out, still snivel. I KNOW THE HOBBIT MOVIES AREN'T GOOD. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH A HOBBIT MOVIE TO ME. A very long and very fond farewell.

By the way – I do also think this general line of thinking is part of the noble failure, yknow, having to tell yourself that there was good stuff along the way. I'm self-aware! But I've also been there, of needing the failure to have meant something so that you can pull yourself through it, and so I'll always be there. (This sounds overdramatic. It's about WC2018. Sorry! Football is polar exploration, I don't know what to tell you.) I think there was a Prachett quote going around in response to grimdark, about needing hope at the end, and that's something I subscribe to very much.

You Can't Stay Here

You can't stay here
Your company's good, I know
But I must wake up alone
And the party is over

I know the last few songs are all very voice and guitar heavy… I think it might be the subject matter lmao. Something about the melancholia of it all gets a guy to fingerpick. HOWEVER I think this closing one is the opposite, in that it's the polar party telling Cherry that he can't stay here. That this isn't the life he should have. It is fucked up that so many of the guys were tied irrevocably to this story, known for that, when there was so much else beyond! The middle section of the lyrics don't quiiiite fit, but I think if you read it a certain kind of way (unwellly) it's. Yeah.

All american rejects

I cut a couple songs out here because I decided I'd use them somewhere else, which I guess goes to show how catch-all the sadness of Cherry is for the sadness of polar exploration. One of them was 朋友, which is going on my all-Chinese songs Cherry playlist because Why Not.

I did this first before realising I wanted to talk shit about it, so I didn't take notes on what else I cut, but one of the songs I do remember was The light in us all by Jim Guthrie. Don't know where I first heard this, but it's a lovely hopeful song – a little too upbeat for Cherry, maybe.

one - the narrow road to furthest south || one - 小人物
two - morning || two - will you join the dance?
three - crevasse || three - we die, but we don't
four - ...antics || four - unknown continents || four - going to the match || four - in that final flowing cold
five - dead and gone