Dark Parts— Perfume Genius

#365Songs: March 12th

Almost exactly 13 years ago, my 365 Songs partner Jay and I walked into Reckless Records on Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago — I’d lived across the street a few years prior, and was on a nostalgic tour of the old neighborhood. We were in town for a writing conference, so what better way to blow our spare time than scraping through vinyl bins and exploring bookstore shelves. I bought a Blonde Redhead album; Jay bought the new Perfume Genius.

“Who’s that?”
“What?”
“That album. Who is it?”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“What?”
“You consider yourself a music tastemaker yet don’t know who Perfume Genius is?”
“Fuck off.”

The album was Put Your Back N 2 It, and though Jay will remind me that I didn’t know at the time what I know now, it’s a masterpiece. Perfume Genius’s Mike Hadreas explored his traumas across 12 flawlessly composed tracks — from domestic and sexual abuse to drug addiction and homophobic bullying. Though unquestionably a deeply sorrowful album, it’s neither morose nor hopeless. There’s so much empathy, compassion, and familial love emanating within every song, the rising perspective that lifts you after surviving the dark parts — but without losing touch with how hard it continues to be.

The hands of God were bigger than grandpa’s eyes
But still he broke the elastic on your waist
But he’ll never break you, baby
But he’ll never break you, baby
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh

I’m not saying this isn’t a deeply sad album, because clearly it is, but there’s also so much beauty in the grief, so much vulnerability in the way Hadreas exposes his own traumas. But to leave it there would do disservice to the beauty within each song, to the optimism that leaks through as you make your way through the album. During the 2012 press tour, he said, “I don’t want it to seem like I’ve been through more than other people. Staying healthy can be more depressing and confusing than being fucked up. But I want to make music that’s honest and hopeful.” The sentiments on the album feel like a cousin to Sufjan Stevens’ recent album, Javelin, which was a love letter to a partner who’d just died, and his own personal coming out story.

Put Your Back N 2 It is what hope sounds when a life isn’t cloaked in privilege. This passing of grief from artist to audience is a gift that not everyone wants to receive, but it’s a gift nonetheless, and within it lives a blueprint for how to move forward no matter how many losses stack up. It’s through this passing of wisdom, and within the sharing of pain, that we, too, can feel something bigger than ourselves, feel something for someone else.

The hands of God were bigger than grandpa’s eyes, but he’s long gone
The love you feel is strong
The love you feel is stronger
I will take the dark part of your heart into my heart
I will take the dark part of your heart into my heart

Though it may seem the world has numbed to the pain of others, though it may seem that an overabundance of suffering all around us requires a hardening shell, the very opposite is true. To feel empathy, as Perfume Genius seems to suggest, is to awaken to what’s possible in all of us.