Hi Jessi and Kate,
I second your comments on how difficult it is to only listen to Last Exit and not find yourself wanting to hear the rest of Vitalogy. It's strange, because I don't really find myself doing that with any of their other records. Vitalogy continues to grow on me in my elder years. I think what it is with Vitalogy and some other albums I love are filler tracks. A couple of the Beastie Boys records (Paul's Boutique and Ill Communication) have become recent favorites for the same reason. The filler tracks seem to really glue together the track listing, which I think Vitalogy may benefit from considering you would probably lose your hearing a lot faster having Dave A. destroy his drum kit for 11-12 tracks straight. As I am writing this email, I am "Spinning the Black Circle" on a new record player table my wife got me for my birthday.
I'm not sure of the exact timeline of when the lyrics to Last Exit were written, but it is really coincidental on how the lyrics read in the context of Kurt Cobain. The constant line of "Three Days and Not Much Longer" does line up with the fact that Kurt was found 3 days after he took his own life. Reading over the lyrics they suggest to me that this is speaking to someone who is trying to find their way back to their life before they became a big success.
Let the sun shine, burn away my mask.
It's as if this person wants to be unrecognizable so they can go back to living an under-the-radar life. I know Ed struggled with this as well, but not to the extreme as Kurt did. In some ways I can relate to climbing up to a certain status that starts to pull you away from you who you feel you really are. As if you can't be yourself without the risk of losing everything. I feel myself wishing I could go back to living at a time in my life that felt easier. I know there are some other lines in the lyric that contradict this interpretation, "let the ocean dissolve away my past," but I can't stop hearing the parallels to Kurt Cobain's struggles in this song.
Forced to endure, what I could not forgive,
Chris
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