Ghost—Honeyglaze

#365Songs: October 1st

I watch your crimson finger scatter like the sun
I am still half dreaming
My eyes are still half shut
I know that there’s no winner
But maybe I have won

I think a lot about transitions. One era to another, the space between scenes in a short story or film edit, a song’s abrupt pace change, the process from moving from one city to another, fading out old friends while meeting new friends. Stasis is an interesting thing, those stretches of life when things just are as they are until some disruption comes along to shake it up.

That’s how transitions work sometimes. It’s one thing, then a lot all at once, and then another thing. Stasis, conflict, stasis. Versus, chorus, verse.

I can’t read the signals
I guess that book is closed
I reach for reassurance
The thing that I want most
You can see me naked
Without taking off my clothes

I haven’t always been a very good friend, partner, or family member these past years. Stasis can be a numbing experience, a series of routines and survival tactics. Sleep, work, parent, sleep, work, parent. Earn a paycheck, pay bills, earn a paycheck, pay bills. Life, at times, is just a process of survival, getting through one day in order to get through the day after. And then, boom: pandemic, layoffs, politics, wildfires, chaos chaos chaos. Too much all at once.

And yet… how many of us live in stasis our whole lives, changing nothing, accepting things as they are, never growing or transitioning from that one static version of ourselves — even when opportunity arises, even when what’s thrown at you demands a shift in something — if not everything.

Fuck that. Chaos is often better than apathy, even when it takes us to or beyond the edges of what we can tolerate.

I’m underneath the table
I’m the bedsheets on your back
I am in the front room
Where the DVD’s are stacked
I am here and nowhere
I am always in between
I’m not being literal
But you know what I mean

Transitions can be painful, seemingly never-ending, but absolutely vital. You can’t go from here to there without moving through some shit.

I’ve always been drawn to music that mirrors this process, the quick pace change, the syncopated rhythms that inexplicably work together despite being in conflict. London-based Honeyglaze blurs their genres and wears their influences on their new album, Real Deal: 90’s style dream-pop and post punk, a little bit of American football meets Radiohead with some Pinback, all fueled by early-aughts-era angsty emo female vocals.

About the standout track Ghost, vocalist and guitarist Anouska Sokolow said, “I imagined what it would be like to be completely detached from your body and observe your universal self. I couldn’t think of a good title for the song so I sent the band an early demo with a ghost emoji. Since then, the song has always been called ‘ghost emoji’ and eventually became ‘Ghost’. We like to play what the song demands, so on ‘Ghost’ we start off in the dream world of an epic ballad before settling into an industrial Portishead-esque groove.”

Now the middle’s over
The afterthought is close
Every time it calls me
I can’t seem to say no
Don’t ask me what I wish for
I’m just waiting to go home

I like that thought: “we like to play what the song demands.” That, but applied to life: “I like to go where life demands.” That’s how a boring night becomes interesting, a mundane walk sparks a new project, quitting a complacent job opens the door to a more purposeful career. Never simple, always unpredictable, the most noteworthy transitions hit hard — for better or worse — and leave us dusting off and studying our reflections. Just as those moments after a car accident, or an earthquake.

I wore a dumb t-shirt years ago. Like every other cloying hipster, I claimed to wear it long before the haiku annoyed the masses:

Haikus are easy
Sometimes they don’t make sense.
Refrigerator

That’s the other type of transition: the one with two seemingly disconnected parts that somehow still weave together to form something that doesn’t make much sense. A misdirect, the space between transitions, the disorientation that precedes the next stasis. Perhaps that’s the tricky part in all this: knowing what moments require deeper attention from the nonsensical random events that aren’t worth further thought. Mistake one for the other and you end up with a terrible haiku or a completely different life.

I’m the greed that yearns for more
I am here and nowhere
I am always in between
I’m not being literal
But you know what I means

~

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