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November 14, 2018: In Hiding (Read on SPT Episode 68)

Hi Brad and Brad,

I thoroughly enjoyed Episode 67 on Yield, with Matthew Mayfield.  For me, there is no track on Yield that I find myself wanting to skip.  I even love "The Color Red" with Jack's percussion, with the speeding up and slowing down of tempo throughout the track.  I've seen "Push Me, Pull Me" live, and I agree with Lyons, seeing it live really helped me enjoy the recorded version more.  I've said previously that Vs. it their most "flawless" album for me, however I love Yield more because of the imperfection and eclectic nature of so many of the tracks on the album.  I love music when it's a little weird, but still not too weird to where it becomes almost psychedelic and you can only enjoy it in the "right mood."
What I want to focus on is "In Hiding." While I was on my 2-week binge of Yield up until Episode 67, I had "In Hiding" stuck in my head throughout most of those days.  I've always enjoyed the track, but came to love it more over the past couple of weeks, especially after learning more about the origin of the lyric and Stone's creation of the music from a micro-cassette recorder.  Single Video Theory spends quite a bit of time on the song, showing an entire recording of it and the most elaborate camera work of any of the songs they perform on the DVD.  They seem to prop up "In Hiding" more than any other track during Single Video Theory.

The lyric has a lot of back story to it.  The main inspiration is from the work of Charles Bukowski, which was provided by a quote given to Eddie from Sean Penn.  Eddie saying, "He told Sean that sometimes he just has to check out for a few days — no people, no nothing. So he goes in hiding, then he gets back and has the will to live once again." Eddie even went on a four-day "Speech Fast" where "By not opening (his) mouth (he) was able to get into that state," which was taking a "fast from life" to "get yourself back in touch with something real." There are so many powerful lines in the lyric and after i thought more about this, I have to change my favorite lyric to the following:

"I swallowed my breath and went deep, I was diving, I was diving. I surfaced and all around me was enlightened"

In case for some random chance that Blazek has the epiphany of "that movie" which was made as a semi-autobiography of Charles Bukowski, that movie's name (which I will save the potential ten-minute awkward silence) is "Barfly" starring Mickey Rouke as Henry Chinaski, who was the literary alter ego of Bukowski in several different novels of his. 


There have been several times in my life where I have wished I could check out and go in hiding for a while.  Just get away from everything and try to find something real as described by Eddie.  A lot of this year to me hasn't felt real.  If anything, I try to deny the fact that what is now around me is reality.  Life is a constant game of adjustment and sometimes I wish I could just take a break from it to slow everything down and find myself again.  I've at least found part of myself again through this band.

Last thing I wanted to mention or ask is if Lyons has any works of Charles Bukowski to suggest looking into, I would be very interested in checking it out.

Forced to endure, what I could not forgive,

Chris

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