OBSESSED (#5): Soundtrack to a War
On carnage and Idles.
Note: you know how these newsletters have been “looking a little different” each consecutive week? Welp, that’s happening again, folks. I’ve been traveling pretty nonstop for about a month now, and simply haven’t had as much time to brush my teeth, and do my day job, and write other stuff, and also write OBSESSED, and maybe spend a few minutes alone in serene contemplation (i.e. farting into a bag of Cheetos)?
I think I’ve figured out a new format that’ll make OBSESSED a more sustainable effort that still retains its quality. I’m excited to get into it next week! Keep an eye on my ol’ socials for that. But this week, we’ve got one dispatch, and a fairly heavy one. Woo!
Soundtrack to a War
When I woke up this morning and checked my phone, I saw the carnage from the Israeli government’s bombing of a well-developed refugee camp that’s housed displaced Palestinian people for 75 years. Then, I drove to the airport and listened to John Feiner, Biden’s deputy national security adviser, talk on NPR’s Morning Edition about the “legitimate military targets” that Israel’s pursuing in its “fundamentally just” “obligation” to go to war.
Later, I opened Instagram. There was a video of a Palestinian man standing behind an ambulance, sobbing while hoisting his unconscious son — five, maybe six — above his head, facing a throng of other men. It was like he couldn’t believe he found his son under the rubble, and wanted to show the crowd the thing he couldn’t believe he was seeing. Then the man turned around, and I saw the back half of the boy’s head was gone.
For 27 days, the world has borne witness to a hideous, disturbing chapter in a brutally persistent conflict. At least 10,000 people are dead because of it. That figure will continue to grow. And we’ll witness all of it.
War crimes in the time of smartphones means everybody sees everything, all the time. At least several thousand videos and photos have been viewed, collectively, hundreds of millions of times. (These are absolutely my own guesses.) We’ve been inside the hospitals, on the decimated streets, atop hills overlooking the wreckage, wedged in the rubble with desperate fathers screaming their childrens’ names.
But we can’t quite talk about it. Because those same smartphones have fundamentally changed the way we respond to … well, everything, from celebrity divorces to urgent humanitarian crises. The general expectation is this: say the right thing, passionately and immediately. But, only if you’re qualified to do so. Unless you have a moral obligation to do so! Still, don’t drown out the communities most impacted by the thing (this is actually good advice). Make it succinct. But also insightful, if possible? When in doubt, say nothing. But don’t you dare be silent in the face of oppression!
There’s good reason for these new social guidelines. Because, no, our opinions aren’t needed for everything. But these guidelines can also make it exhausting to say anything. So, Israel and Palestine? The international conflict that’s political and religious? The issue that’s, uh, commonly used as a (lame) punchline in jokes about hard-to-talk-about things?
In spite of that tension, maybe more companies and public figures would’ve still decided to speak out against government slaughter. But throw in America and Israel’s allyship (this is a massive factor), and the persistent myth that disagreeing with the Israeli government is fundamentally antisemitic, and bam. Nobody’s saying anything. Or, at the very least, fewer people, public figures and companies are saying something than you’d hope would during a globally broadcast genocide. To be fair, some journalists have called for a ceasefire! And then got quietly sacked. (Important note: there are many Palestinian and Jewish people and groups speaking out against the war.)
With each passing day, the question gets more urgent: is the severity of Israel’s attack on Gaza justified? I do not believe so. (This is generally my stance on killing!!) Lots of other people don’t, either. But it feels like this widespread cognitive dissonance, or just inherent conflict — this mass witnessing of atrocities; the mass demand that everything said be pleasing to anybody listening — is starting to feel almost poetic in its futility. Like a snake eating its own tail. Or a dutiful string of dodo birds following one another off a cliff.
So therein lies the context for why I’ve been finding a lot of catharsis in Idles, the British post-punk band that gained some popularity after its 2018 album, Joy as an Act of Resistance. Don’t call Idles a punk band in front of Joe Talbot, though — the frontman has been adamant about Idles not being punk, but rather, “doom metal techno sludge in the low mids.” (That sounds pretty dark for a band who opens its 2018 single “Television” with this sweet affirmation: “If someone talked to you / The way you do to you / I'd put their teeth through / Love yourself.”)
Pitchfork, one of the douchiest websites on the planet, once said Idles’ lyrics are “often so on-the-nose, they’re liable to crush your face.” That’s 100% true. Bring on the hamfisted lyrics! Because therein lies the catharsis. Amid a sea of silence and empty statements impossible to demonize because they say absolutely nothing, it feels good to listen to a man bluntly scream truths.
I say “truths” instead of “lyrics,” because there’s not much traditional lyricism in Idles’ discography. It’d be more accurate to say that over sludgy riffs, Talbot howls the disjointed, choppy half-sentences he scrawled in his diary just moments ago. Sometimes, these entries are bizarrely specific and therefore personal: “I don't care about the next James Bond / He kills for country, queen and god / We don't need another murderous toff.” (That’s from 2018’s “I’m Scum.”)
Other times, they’re blunt to the point of being … honestly? Kinda funny. In 2020’s “Ne Touche Pas Moi,” Talbot literally chants “CONSENT!” five times in a row. (“Ne Touche Pas Moi” is French for “don’t touch me.”) Hamfisted? Absolutely. Hilarious? To me, a little bit! But do they still offer a nice, guttural release? You betcha!
But even though there isn’t a ton of nuance in Idles’ lyrics, they’re still artfully written. I’m a fan of the first verse on “Great,” off Joy as an Act of Resistance: “Blighty wants his country back / Fifty-inch screen in his cul-de-sac / Whooping charm of the Union Jack / As he cries at the price of a bacon bap / Islam didn't eat your hamster / Change isn't a crime.” Damn! Those are pretty hamfisted, too. How refreshingly direct!
This might all be a fancy way of saying: breaking news! A white woman is listening to punk to cope with genocide. That’s not wrong! That’s pretty much what’s happening here! None of this is groundbreaking! It’s definitely not meant to be groundbreaking. But on day 28 of this repulsive chapter in our shared history, it’s where I’m at. I’m angry, confused and feeling like I’ve now got a decent idea of what it’d be like if there were cell phones during a genocide. Because that’s what’s happening. We’re living in a profound historical moment. Many are dying, right now, in that historical moment. And from the immense comfort I enjoy as someone born in the wealthiest nation on the planet, unsure of what to use besides my voice & my dollar, it’s a small catharsis to scream words that are true, just and unapologetically humane.
From “War,” off the 2020 album Ultra Mono: “Send Sally into open fire / Send Johnny to the sandbox, baby / We're dying for the stone-faced lies / We're all going straight to hell.”
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