Absurd Music
Apr. 11th, 2017 04:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogI was writing a catch-up post, but Danae asked me to get documents for taxes together, so I'm working on that. As I do, I'm listening to John Linnell's "State Songs" album. There are a few songs that I love, but I'd forgotten about one of my favorites; "Montana." (John Linnell is one half of They Might Be Giants.)
In my head, it's about a man who's terminally ill in a hospital who, in a state of altered consciousness, makes the earth-shattering realization that Montana is *actually* a leg. This realization is the culmination of his entire philosophical life; suddenly, life, the universe, and everything make sense. He's purely and completely content, and can let go of his attachment to this mortal coil. The realization has no basis in reality, but for him, it feels like a secret of the universe. It's a little Douglas Adamsian. In "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish," Marvin the Android, after billions of years of life spent in the service of beings less intelligent than himself and with a pain in all the diodes in his left side, finally sees that God's final message to his creation is "We apologize for the inconvenience," and he feels pretty good about that.
"Montana," to me, is kind of like that. It's so absurd, yet somehow reassuring.
"Now I get it
I wasn't sure but now I know
And I can finally go
Give out my lungs, give up and tell
The information to the man in the next bed down
In the morning he'll tell someone the last thing that I said
When I told him that Montana was a leg
From the beginning there was something about it staring me
In the face I should have guessed it right away
When it started with a feeling that ended in a leg
And it seemed to me Montana was a leg
A leg
Now I get it
I'll tell the person next to me
(I'll tell them that Montana was)
I'll say Montana was
A leg
Now I get it
I wasn't sure
But now I know
And I can finally go"
(And now I've apparently gotten distracted from my distraction by writing that I wasn't originally writing. Oops....)
In my head, it's about a man who's terminally ill in a hospital who, in a state of altered consciousness, makes the earth-shattering realization that Montana is *actually* a leg. This realization is the culmination of his entire philosophical life; suddenly, life, the universe, and everything make sense. He's purely and completely content, and can let go of his attachment to this mortal coil. The realization has no basis in reality, but for him, it feels like a secret of the universe. It's a little Douglas Adamsian. In "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish," Marvin the Android, after billions of years of life spent in the service of beings less intelligent than himself and with a pain in all the diodes in his left side, finally sees that God's final message to his creation is "We apologize for the inconvenience," and he feels pretty good about that.
"Montana," to me, is kind of like that. It's so absurd, yet somehow reassuring.
"Now I get it
I wasn't sure but now I know
And I can finally go
Give out my lungs, give up and tell
The information to the man in the next bed down
In the morning he'll tell someone the last thing that I said
When I told him that Montana was a leg
From the beginning there was something about it staring me
In the face I should have guessed it right away
When it started with a feeling that ended in a leg
And it seemed to me Montana was a leg
A leg
Now I get it
I'll tell the person next to me
(I'll tell them that Montana was)
I'll say Montana was
A leg
Now I get it
I wasn't sure
But now I know
And I can finally go"
(And now I've apparently gotten distracted from my distraction by writing that I wasn't originally writing. Oops....)
