Paralyzed

A few years ago, a friend from China asked me what I had thought of Bill Clinton's presidency. I had to think about it, because I was relatively young and not really aware of what was going on. I remember the 90's as a time of relative ease and comfort, when there were no bad guys, not the Soviets of the 20th century nor the terrorists of the 21st. "I think it was pretty good," I said. "I mean, there were no wars, at least."

"What about Yugoslavia?" said my friend.

I have to admit I barely had any idea what he was talking about. I knew that something bad had happened in Kosovo, just as I know something bad has happened in Darfur -- these are words we hear on TV and the radio, bad places where people are using bombs and guns to kill other people. But as long as it remains in the realm of the media, these conflicts are hardly real to me.

It feels the same with pop songs, in a way. These are media products, surely, not the works of flesh-and-blood people. Are not the latest singles from Weezer and Britney Spears and Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas written by automatons or computers powered by scientifically advanced pop algorithms, commissioned by large corporations to generate revenue? Is not the sensationalism of "news" a similar product, just another reality show that can generate ad sales?

Maybe. But there are beating hearts and brains and bodies behind all this, as rarely as that truth emerges. To quote the radio announcer who witnessed the Hindenburg crash and burn, "oh, the humanity."

All this is to say: "Paralyzed" is a place where these media products become real and meet, this abstractation called "Kosovo," this pretty diversion called "Kiss Me." [In fact, "Paralyzed" could be to "Kiss Me" as Radiohead's "My Iron Lung" is to their "Creep," an existential inquisition to a top-40 single.] It's a thick and deep song, more textured than most of the record it appears on. The bass is sinister and low, the organ rough and ragged, and--for the first time in quite a while--guitar piercing through the miasma with a genuine Rock and Roll Riff.

It's important to note the transformation of "Paralyzed" from a third-person account by a songwriter of his encounter with a journalist to a first-person story narrated by the journalist himself. The songs that ended up on Divine Discontent were developed during the early days of Music on the Internet, the days of Audiogalaxy and Napster and Minidisc recorders, so we have concert recordings of Divine Discontent songs well before they were recorded -- "Melody of You" with only one verse written, "Dizzy" with violin instead of French horn, gems like "Train Wreck" and "Stronger" and "Monteiro" which never made it to tape. There were some significant changes made to the lyrics "Paralyzed" between its early live performances and its recording. As I recall, the original second verse goes:

I breathe in, and breathe out

and go to do an interview

about a song, three minutes long

that will mean nothing to you

especially when your dearest friend was sent to cover Kosovo

his last assignment brought a bullet, and now he's gone

This is pretty clearly Slocum lamenting the relative worthlessness --not to put words in his mouth -- of talking about a pop song to a person who has recently and greatly suffered. Even to the songwriter, war is nauseating; both the live and recorded versions maintain the beautiful, blunt line "my stomach's reeling at the thought of all those human beings dead."

Yet by the time the record was released, the interview has become, from the journalist's perspective, a way to numb the pain:

I breathe in, and breathe out

and go to do an interview

about a song, three minutes long

I just need something to do

especially when my dearest friend was sent to cover Kosovo

his last assignment brought a bullet, and now he's gone

We are now in the world of this European journalist, yet the chorus is ambiguous -- it could be the reporter feeling impotent for keeping the war at arm's length, or the songwriter feeling doubly so for being at one more remove, not even being able to feel genuine sympathy and concern for a fellow media-maker. Either way, look at the significant changes made to the lyrics of the chorus. The original:

Feels like I'm fiddling while Rome is burning down

Should I lay my fiddle down, take a rifle from the ground?
God give me strength to pray that you will set things right

'Cause I'm paralyzed, I'm paralyzed

I admit that when I heard the Divine Discontent version, I was looking for someone to blame, like maybe the evil secular record label that not only made Sixpence record more 80's pop covers, but made them "de-Christianize" this chorus like so:

Feels like I'm fiddling while Rome is burning down

Should I lay my fiddle down, take a rifle from the ground?

I need the ghost to breathe a northern gale tonight

'Cause I'm paralyzed, I'm paralyzed

That's lame, I thought. Just some throwaway line about a ghost. It was years later that I realized it was the Ghost, not a ghost, that the whole purpose of the prayer had been shifted from a desire for God to work to a desire for the spirit of God to work through the pray-er. Maybe just a semantic shift, yet it makes a difference.

The final verse is an even more personal encounter -- again told either third-person or first-person, depending on the version -- where the journalist tells his friend's pregnant wife that he has been killed, and cannot find any words beyond reporting this singular, awful fact. The song ends with another pleading chorus, and a final repetition of a motif that has been running throughout the verses: "I breathe in, I breathe out." Sure, I suppose that suggests life, survival, at least, but there's precious little solace in ending on that image, either the songwriter or the journalist simply looking down in shame and powerlessness, unable to do anything but breathe.

And oh God, the end of this song. The sound and fury of the drums and organ and guitar. I can hear nothing but the relentless and unfeeling explosion of bombs and I cannot move.