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steppenwolf) wrote2022-12-08 12:03 am
we die, but we don't
Hello just writing this before I post :* it's past midnight my bedtime is usually 2230 I have a really bad headache and I take no responsibility for anything I've written here. Unedited filth. goodnight
A note on the type
This is based off of the cover of A Little Night Music, which was probably the easiest to do (I wanted to do a Sunday in the Park With George one but weirdly Con doesn't have a lot of profile shots either. and also would probably not wear jeans). I managed to find the original font thanks to The Interwebs, et voila. One Ton of points if you recognise what the tree's been replaced with :crylaugh: The original back cover had acts, and while I hadn't originally thought about that it felt like it actually made sense with the songs, so I half-and-halved it.
Title from No More, and although I didn't include Move On in this I just wanted to repeat the description here: The choice may have been mistaken, the choosing was not.
background noise
Hello and welcome to I'm Fumkin Sad About Robert Falcon Scott Hours. (It's every day.) This wasn't the case six months ago!!!!!!! Deep breath. I'm about to go fucking insane so if you just want the songs please ctrl f 'thank you for the music'. And then don't read the liner notes there because I am projecting so hard and I'm tired and I don't know what's going on anymore. THANKS
[This is also something of a love letter to Caitwin – thank you for being with me in the pickles mines <3]
So. Con. I think Cherry's right in his batshit description of him - those lights and shades, being someone you come to love rather than love outright. I think he's hard to love for the same reason we sometimes find it hard to love ourselves; he's so visibly fallible, so uncertain and high-strung and foolish, so awfully human. And don't we believe in heroes to get away from these things?
Anyway it's moot because Con can't be a hero; he's all over the goddamn place with his nervy anxiety, 'literary gifts'[1], depresso morbing, determination despite, dorkish science stuff, rigid royal navy stuff, imperial hero, wondering why anyone cares about him at parties, endearingly shitty art, Rules Guy, bottom energy, hot sauce energy, the risks were calculated but man am I bad at math, the risks were taken we knew we took them, acts of hubris, acts of love.. he's been the point of debate for over a hundred years - no easy thing to achieve. He's definitely not a born explorer, like Roald or Shackles. He's not a scientist like Bill. He's not even a horse guy. Heck, I love him and then I sometimes get angry with him, like I never really know how to feel or think. Even as I'm typing this I'm wondering if people would agree with my takes (I always do this, but it feels like with Con more than anyone else). I doubt this would be possible if he were a cut-and-dry imperial hero or bumbler, depending on which old man named R-something you subscribe to.
What I'm trying to say is that he's horribly complex and I think that complexity goes a way to how people react to him - easy to understand blorbos are easy to love yknow. But maybe, ultimately... does it really matter, in the end? Blorbos are blorbos! Just like Con I am overthinking this to fucked up proportions!
And maybe the complexity is the point. Like ms beryl says he retained his essential humanity, and it's that which underpins him to me, that seems to cut through the rest of him. So many of his decisions and mistakes were borne of being - SORRY TO TED TALLY TERRA NOVA THIS - the worst kind of decent man, too human for the ruthlessness of Antarctica. And that's what I come back to. Which is fuckin funny (it isn't) because that's the part of himself he tried to hide the most innit :crylaugh: To be human is to be complex. For a guy who didn't know who he was half the time he was also too much himself.
ALLLLLLLLLLL THIS TO SAY. I was on my usual youtube musical theatre binge, minding my own business, when this one song came on autoplay. My first thought: man he would love this and I have to make him listen to it in my unfrozen polar party AU. My second thought: ah god ah fuck it's about him isn't it.
And really: what better songwriter to capture the complexity of being alive?
[1]Thanks Roland
thank you for the music
Meant to be in order, BUT AGAIN, I'm not your mum
What's natural come hard.
Maybe you could show me how to let go,
Lower my guard,
Learn to be free.
Yeah yeah I'm constantly upset about how he had such a short childhood before the RN got their grubbly lil fingers on him so let's not think about this song in that context lmao let's not think about dad and brother dying and needing to Make Money and never being able to relax let's not think about a guy who's learnt to find the rules in himself and can navigate and do maths and write papers about fuckin ice but finds it hard to just be a person let's not think about any of that!
I stumbled on this version of Sondheim singing it and thought it was perfect actually in that idea of… well I don't know how to explain, that childish idea of anyone can do anything if they try vs being brave enough to do it? So. fingerguns. dies.
We could laugh together
Move me to the sun
Stay here with me
Two songs for his two big relationships! I enjoy how this could be read both ways with Con & Kathleen, that either of them could be Charles or Ella & vice versa. It's maybe more intuitive to see Kathleen as the bohemian one who wants to be and feel alive, but you know how Con's always going on about Kathleen being so cool and smart and having arty friends and all that! And the staying here/letting go on both sides… and finally the having their own world that reminds me of that bit in Spuff where he talks about Con moping As Usual about the future and Kathleen insisting that they'll find a way to make it happy. Ah miserable.
It was better, Charley. We both know it.
But we're not the three of us anymore. Now we're one and one and one.
polycule song :crylaugh: I actually just wanted Like It Was as a standalone but the versions didn't have Charley's spoken line, which was the point, and also y'know what Stephen you were right (of course you were) it hits so much worse with Old Friends. The sadness and weight of years and desperation tinging such a cheerful song then fading into pure regret is so… good fucking christ. I think of ghosts and things that never were.
Or you're a lover
Or you're the famous
Benjamin Stone.
You take one road,
You try one door,
There isn't time for any more.
Speaking of things that never were! Physically haunted by every description of Con that's something like 'he should have been a scientist/writer/whatever' instead. He should have. He should have. But instead he's the famous Robert Falcon Scott.
I dunno man I'm so cut up about, like, someone who doesn't know who he is, who defines himself by things and roles and the people around him. You take your road,
The decades fly, The yearnings fade, the longings die. You learn to bid them all goodbye. And the irony of saying "the blessed peace" in a song that's anything but peaceful… sit down Con. Have a drink with me… look at a cloud… aren't you tired…
The Ben I'll never be, Who remembers him? I will :crylaugh:
Holding to their own
Thinking they're alone
Honor their mistakes
Fight for their mistakes
Everybody makes
One another's terrible mistakes
Witches can be right
Giants can be good
You decide what's right
You decide what's good
And now the second act, which I think is like… polar journey proper, dying in tent proper. I want to quote this whole song lmao. I think a lot of people also make out that Con took the weight of responsibility very seriously, too seriously, to the point of always feeling the need to make decisions alone… but no one is alone… [once again reminded of We Are For Each Other]
I think. Maybe he only realises at the end. When nothing's quite so clear now… But! But! You move just a finger / Say the slightest word / Something's bound to linger / Be heard. It isn't too late, because he can still write, and we all know how he could write, what he wrote, and maybe that was the best and easiest decision he ever made, his last.
This is a little bit more tenuous, but still on the line of that last word, the immortality of art and connection to what came before. I always think how strange it is to see so many non-polar related books I'm reading mention something polar-related, but beyond strange why is that? Because it's still, somehow, resonating. I mean look at us, I'm catching a flight tomorrow and I'm screaming about a dead polar explorer instead of going to bed. And I don't think the polar party's hold on history would have been so strong if Con hadn't done, you know, that. Maybe it's one of the reasons why people are still going on about him, because it's so hard to reconcile the fact that someone so '''weak''' or a '''shitty bitch''' could, while literally freezing to death, write his expedition into our narratives. I dunno. Isn't it lovely how artists can capture us?
Somebody force me to care
Somebody let come through
I'll always be there
As frightened as you
To help us survive
Yea.. the song that started it all. What else can I say. Somebody please crowd him with love. Somebody please know him too well. I'm so tired man. I'm so tired I care him so much. He's as frightened as us. But being alone is not being alive.
Nor the furious winter's rages,
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages.
And at last… the death. Despite the last, final kicking out, which – who of us could really say they would go gentle into that good night besides Edward Adrian Wilson, and I feel like Con wants to live as much as he hates it, OR IS THIS JUST ME PROJECTING LMFAO – I like to think he found some kind of peace at the end. Never having to make another decision again. Not having to struggle anymore. Not having to put on a Face. Just a guy who's been holding on to himself so tightly being able to let go.
All american rejects
I considered No More but it felt like there were a lot of 'No's and 'More's, and it felt more fun to have one song from one thing. I love Finishing the Hat and considered that, but I think it's feels like a Shacklesong… I would have loved to put in Unexpected Song somewhere but again I think that's just me being precious about my faves. I'M SO TIRED. GOODNIGHT
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
no subject
no subject
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Wouldn't change a thing,
Would they?
RACH