disaster song descriptions

For Kevey, initially, for some kind of demo liner notes, eventually.

Research

This song is about skateboarding, place, ownership, and memory.

Who owns a place?  Is it the person who holds the deed, title, or monetary investments, or is it those who occupy the place, us it, redefine it, develop an intimate relationship with it and invest their lives in that place?  Certainly, its a question that kids ask themselves as they’re getting kicked out of skate spots, but more fundamentally, and significantly, its a question that’s relevent to communities like the strong working-class communities that once existed near the Victorian Village and Harrison West neighborhoods of Columbus, Ohio; or many communities in New Orleans who have been forced to passively wait while the decision about whether their community will be allowed to be rebuilt is made by others.  When a place or community ceases to exist physically, what role does memory hold in maintaining some sense of ownership of a place?  Who is entitled to hold that memory?

Lightning Strikes 

This song is about being honest in your relationships, romantic or otherwise.  Its about how a big part of that is being honest with yourself about those relationships and allowing yourself to be happy and excited about them even if that makes you feel vulnerable and scared at the same time.  Its about expressing all of these feelings to the people you care about, and how realizing the importance of these things and actually coming to be able to do them can be a long and painful process.

The Human Contradiction

This pair of titles gets their title from some books by Octavia Butler (RIP) poses the human contradiction as being humanity’s intelligence coupled with their hierarchical nature and describes this contradiction as being ultimately destructive.  This made me think of another human contradiction – humanity’s ability to survive great hardship, tragedy, and oppression only to repeat those horrors.  The first song is about wanting to see an end to this cycle, even if it means an end to humanity and the second song is about finding hope even in spite of this contradiction.

This Is Where We’re From   

This song is about how so many punk kids come from bland suburban and exurban communities and ultimately migrate en-masse from those communities to other places.  Its about how coming from a place devoid of culture creates a seperation from one’s personal history.  Its about struggling to find a place in a new community that feels real and the tendency to fetishize the idea of “community” and in particular communities that newcomers might be playing a role in destroying.

Death At An Early Age

This is about the segregation and inequality that still exists in American education.  Its also about how people affected by social problems are often only regarded as victims.

Shut the Fuck Up

This is about those in power saying things that underline how their reality is completely out of touch with that of so many others.  Its about wishing that these people would at least have smarts to be tactful and silent as they fuck up people’s lives, but recognizing that saying horrible things at least reminds us who we can’t trust.
New Song

This song is about finding hope in shared experience.