'Boo! Human' Review and Analysis

 Starting off with Show and Told,

we're greeted with a somewhat eerie but laid back acoustic guitar. It sounds kind of like a sea shanty or "Spanish Romance" or something; very classical inspired. The lyrics and singing on Tim's part are also relatively tame for a JOA song (although they're still unconventional relative to other music). "There are corners of your home you've never noticed before;" this is an album about Tim's divorce-- these lyrics set the stage for the domestic-liminality, the mysteriousness associated with Tim's new single life and the ruins of his home. "Show and Told" is a 'presenting' yet also 'prescribed' by that which shows itself and is told of itself.

Laughter Reflected Back is a striking contrast. The odd time signatures, unconventional scales, and hypnotic rings (also the bass lines, damn) put me in a trance. The song starts with a guy laughing (I don't think its Tim) and cuts off a woman starting to laugh with the main riff. "Best friend I ever had/ was the worst fucking thing that ever happened to me." This song displays regret and confusion "reflecting back" in a sarcastic mimicry; "at least we can each count on this shit to be reflected back at us/ in the depths of our laughter." (And not to forget the moans that make this feel like a prayer song or something.)

Just Pack or Unpack. "The ricochet continues" like an air hockey puck bouncing off walls, hitting fingers, the arguments within the game of love(?), or perhaps the bouncing back of the same argument to leave or stay. Maybe this song is only about Tim (in his mind), not even him and his ex-wife, but only Tim. "please meet the new me." Tim's self is a ricochet of decision and uncertainty; "yes I do know that I don't." The song sings "ooh then all at once/ we were no longer us..." in a total beat switch, a weird 'western' vibe (at least, that's what  I think it is), but its still kinda mysterious. Near the end its kind of like a zelda shop music or something in a mysterious town.

This is the song that made me check out the album: 9/11 2. Frankly, this song is pretty personal and there's not much really to say other than "deep." It's really sad, and I like it a lot-- I think the emotion it's going for really resonates with me and it's a very unique aesthetic that I don't find in a lot of other music. "The future is gone and the past won't stop happening/ being the center of everything to me/ just wasn't enough for you." What do you think this means? There's the exoteric view which is the political implications of 9/11 (the album came out in 2011 so I don't really remember what political shit might've influenced this song at all other than 9/11 just holding this high status of respect at the time which Tim was obviously critiquing,) like how 9/11 haunts the US's mind within everything; US hegemony is so prevalent the past wont stop happening within products, friends, school, work, sex, everything; there is no future (fukiyama's the end of history, too) other than this present from this past. Of course, this song isn't really talking about 9/11, because its 9/11 2 no doubt, but also because it's how he felt with his wife. "you took this time to think this through/ sort your evidence and re-write history/ Decided already this is how it had to be/ by the time you told me anything." It doesn't take a genius to see literal 9/11 as the subject here, but it also is genius-less to realize that this is about his wife (her manipulation, presumably, "re-writing" history and gaslighting). This is what makes me think I'm either missing something within the lyrics regarding how Tim describes his relationship with this song, or the song is more expressive than commentary. Again, I still really like this song; the instrumentals stand out with their intense strings and Tim's lyrics are complementarily stressful.

This next song is one of my favorites: "A Tell-Tale Penis." This song is actually what made me want to write this review here. It goes the hardest with it's lyrical imagery, vocal performance, the math-y inspired but classic Midwest-emo based (but definitely not something a conventional emo fan would probably like(Although maybe the easiest song for them to like on this album)). But anyhoo:

"Whoever else I may have been/ she'd still be going through this now/ but all the quiet hours I require still can't show me how/" Perhaps Tim has now realized that the relationship was not about his 'self' (as discussed in just pack or unpack, there is no him, (yet regardless it also wasn't his fault) and Tim has made the connection that this was inevitable. Yet, no matter how much meditation Tim takes, he hasn't learned how. He can't learn this, perhaps. He's "barely living in her halftime show," and Tim will never be able to understand while he's so outside of her life or even concern. Despite this, he remembers all of her "wishes and revisions;" maybe he's changing himself, remembering specific instances she critiqued him(or "wished" for him to be someway).

"Somethings knocking around in me like a loose nut/ and this tell-tale penis kick in the gut/ shot down my strut." Something is bothering him, perhaps "knocking" like he's being reminded, annoyed even, something is 'urging' him to be recognized. This brings us to the main course-- the tell-tale penis itself. What is this kick in the gut that shot down his strut? He's obviously referencing The Tell-Tale Heart throughout the song ("The walls are beating," "It's the creak in the floorboards"), but what's the difference between the penis and the heart here? My intuitive response is to say that it's his sexual desire knocking on him; the penis that he can't stop from throbbing or "creaking in the floorboards" hurts him despite everything said prior on the album (why does he think the best friend he ever had was the worst fucking thing that ever happened to him?) . He can't get over the secret lust that he doesn't want to admit to himself, his wife, or anyone (like in the OG story). "The walls are beating/ its my reflection in my death/ its the alarm clock riding on the horizon[.]" The tell-tale penis is his 'reflection in his death.' What? Maybe its his mirrored self 'from' other people projecting their understanding of him onto him once he dies (a tell-tale penis; that he only loved her for body maybe?). If it is "the alarm clock riding the horizon," it makes me think it is that that reflects his death; every moment with the Other frames us within their Same. Maybe he thinks he's dying in every moment when subjected to this gaze of the recognition of his tell-tale penis. THe alarm clock on the horizon makes me think of a few things: firstly, an alarm clock is for 'waking up'-- also it is potentially for just remembering something (to regulate "being 'alarmed'"). Maybe its his death on the horizon-- perhaps the 'wakeup' of knowing death. Maybe that moment only comes during dying.

Or perhaps the tell tale penis isn't quite this terrible guilty thing Tim has, rather, maybe she hurt him someway, sexually, and that was his kick in the gut? Maybe he's embarrassed about himself, the beating heart under the floorboards simply being the love he can't keep inside him(after all, in the OG story the guy breaks in and steals the dude's heart (right? is this the right story?)) I don't know-- it's very ambiguous, although I do think he ultimately means the former theory, as the song seems to be mostly about memory. "once we spent our afternoons/ dancing in our living rooms;" they had this wonderful relationship, but now she was retreating from him, away. Honestly one of the best lines in the song is "you can end things with your boyfriend/ I'll quit chasing you around." I feel like this is so good at explaining this weird jealousy that dudes get, that I've gotten, where I've secretly wished for someone else to be worse off just to escape from this really primal and intimate feeling (its this painful throb in my stomach). It's like dominating someone without committing to them. Tim is okay with settling to only love this person from afar (and "quite chasing" them  around) on the condition that she end things with her boyfriend; Tim cant move on. And how long will this feeling last? "how long will the echo of the tell-tale penis sound?... Its the hand up through the dirt/ toward the sky after midnight/ burried alive and left for dead." A zombie, I assume. But of what? Him? His relationship? The feeling? I don't know, frankly. I haven't figured it out yet.

OOooookay that was long as fuck. Okay, whatever. Next song. Everywhere I go Everyone I Know Laughs and Says I Told You So . Okay frankly not much to say here-- it's a trippy song, cool guitar picking. The audio effects are cool too, admittedly. I probably wouldn't have liked this song a few months/years ago, but now its really grown on me.

Vine on a Wire is another religious sounding song. "the only impossible thing has happened... I can do this for her/ I can stay awake/ if thats how she now needs me/ to be there for her in a way". This song is an acceptance of what she wants; "I've abandoned my beautiful best friend to confusion/ just as she had demanded I do." 

Insects Don't Eat Banana's is a strange song-- I don't know what sound it's going for... it has a tropical-kinda vibe like super mario or something. "If you insist on squashing me like a bug couldn't you be merciful and just stomp on me instead of this prolonged smear." Pull the bandaid off, fast. Quick and painless, don't torture me with your inability to communicate, is what Tim is saying here.

Lying and Cheating and Chasing You Around -- this is probably autobiographical to Tim Kinsella.

If there was a Time is the first song I really liked on this album. It's really sad and its honestly hard a little bit for me to listen to-- I wont say much, but the "boo human-- I'm never speaking to you again," goes HARD. YES! I never will! Fuck! That is just so emotional to me. He doesn't just sound 'sad' or 'mad' or any one thing, its such a complex variety of emotion in the performance with the classic caP'n Jazz  vocal belting, but now Tim is so much more mature-- he's divorced. Its just such a deep turn. I liked it at first because I liked the anti-humanist themes, but frankly I'm not certain if Tim had that in mind at all-- he  ranked it I think as like #6 of his favorite JOA album and he said he thinks of it only as "the divorce album;" that's a little bit disheartening because I feel like I get a lot out of this album as a commentary, but I suppose Tim never said that it diminished the importance of the album or the songs.

The Surrender #1 is good. I wrote the whole last paragraph listening to it. Hypnotic, but not much to say other than I liked it. 

If there was a time #2 however is way more stressful. It sounds like confusion and forgetting; regret and the aforementioned stomach pit. The synths go hard, too. But the switch up-- this is the coolest thing in the album. "I smile to each room that I enter and I'm aware of choosing not to destroy" Later, "I smile to each room I consciously don't destroy." Pretty reflective.

The Surrender #2 is a reflective song. Tim sings that he has "surrendered succesfully," although, "its better than she to me." I wonder if he's saying that he would prefer his own surrender than his wifes? Is that because he doesn't believe it to be sincere? Or perhaps he doesn't want to engage in the same geurilla war tactics of the divorce that his wife has (her bitter meds have thickened him, After all, although muscle memory "blessed be"). The bitter meds that thicken him could perhaps be the source of the numbing described in Show and Told. His muscle memory, maybe his ability to surrender, to divorce, is the muscle memory of communication despite the numbing (he can't take it no-moe). Imediately after, he compares her to a snake ("within her quiet hissin' lies a subtle proposition;" although he does call her a "thin-skinned amphibian" I'm not sure if this is literal (and that sshe is NOT a snake) or if he was just going for the rhyme and wanted a slimy creepy crawly animal to represent her slippery lies. I suppose maybe that makes sense, as he also does say 'thin skinned.' The most obvious extrapolation here is that its a contrast to his thick skin, maybe Tim is numb and she isn't, as in, she can't endure the same shit tim does. 

"Her rapid-fire lies require/ Such arrogance we've both grown tired/ However I've become this man/ What a beautiful mistake she's been." This is pretty self-evident--- She lies, theyre both sick of it, but while Tim has become 'this man' (not explicitly good nor bad) she has become explicitly a mistake... kinda harsh. "Love becomes shame in direct ratio/ To the depths one allows one's love to grow." This is deep and kind of depressing. Maybe he means an outward-ly 'Nietzschean' image here, with the co-play of depths and love... Maybe depths is isolation, or perhaps just deep-shit (like a divorce), and while in this deep struggle his love grows stronger, but this drags him deeper into the depths.

The final song, So-And-So , is one of the fucking craziest songs I've heard. I suppose this is super "white guy emo cringe", but this song really hit me once I first really listened to it. It's not very lyrically complex, but its probably the most emotional song I've really heard JOA put out. I won't really go over the lyrics of the first half of the song, as I think A). you should at least go listen to it, and B). There's not much to say that would be put better than what Tim just sings. That is, until he starts singing about "so-and-so." This part of the song is perfect at the arbitrariness of time, love, passing, and change. A person, once so beautiful and important to you, can turn into another 'so-and-so.' 

"Doomed to do some so-and-so; And to me you'll be some so-and-so/ And I'll be just your old ex-so-and-so; I'll see you on the street sometime/ So-and-so; And introduce you to me new so-and-so; And I'll politely/ Shake hands with your so-and-so; I'll smile at the son of so-and-so/ And your child to me will just be some so-and-so."

That really embraces regret and laments in mistake. It's not quite a hateful or blameful song, rather its the acceptance of become an 'ex-so-and-so' and the unmendabiliity of such a beautifuyl relationship. FUCK that is deep.

I suppose the beautiful part is that Tim did eventually come back and get married (with jenny pules ( i BELIEVE they're married but im not too sure)) so time does continue, and identity is malleable and removable; separable but also containing potential for growth and conjoining. 

But yeah so thats the whole album, reviewed by me. There's some more I could say about this, but frankly I'm just ready to post this damn thing and go to sleep. I might say some more stuff in the future, but I suppose I'll leave you with this: The album is probably my favorite (or, depending on the day, second favorite to Live in Chicago, 1999) JOA project. It seems the most emotive and really resonates with me on what its going for. It's a depressing album, but also very experimental and at times (seemingly/instrumentally) upbeat, which adds to the confusion that the album is going for. It's a stressful sound, but it's so much fun. The album can also be very quiet, and it embraces its electric speed-y shit with the softer guitar parts in a very fine way. The mixing, transition, and general song layout/placement/length whatever is all great. I suppose my 'real' rating would be like a 2.2/3, but I'd give it (personally) a 3/3.