I AM TIRED, I AM WEARY

I'm suspicious of the language of coercion that we tend to use to describe our emotional reactions to art. It made me laugh, it made me cry...

And yet there I was yesterday, idling at an intersection in front of the local Giant on my way home from work, feeling my jaw tighten in a gentle surge of rage.

If you've been reading for the last few days, you'll notice that I've been dipping into the Velvets. I confess that it's been quite a while since I've done so, and it can be refreshing to come back to the good stuff with new ears.

But as Heroin skronked to a climax, I was more and more gripped by the feeling that the whole thing was irresponsible. Kind of reprehensibly so...

While you could hardly call the song a glamorization of the drug, I don't think you can deny the darkly seductive tableau of self-annihilation that's laid out. There are a couple of particularly disconcerting moments where Lou kind of chuckles the lyrics...

If you're reading this, chances are you'd be quick to acknowledge that art can be a positive force in a local and global sense, but we also have to acknowledge the corollary. That is, like any worthwhile religion, there is good and there is evil. And no, both of those words aren't dead...

So, just as I know that Heroin never made anyone stick a spike into their vein, I realize that it did not make me have the reaction I did-- the whole nexus is pretty damn intricate. But I can't completely let it off the hook in either case...

Well, today I found a cure in Loaded. By this point the Velvets had embraced their inner CCR, and taken the long road from ermine to flannel. I'll be damned if Sweet Jane, Rock and Roll, and Head Held High are not some of the most exhilarating, life-affirming songs ever recorded. They made me feel better about all this.

I ended the day by scooping the cases for the four Velvets albums off my front seat, and filing them back on my shelf. We'll get together again in a couple of years and see how we're both doing...