The cover image for the album 'LIVE ROPE' by Swans.
I'm listening to Swans' LIVE ROPE, a live album that I thought is released today. It is, on Mute in North America, but it was first released in 2024. I felt a tinge of shame because I didn't know that. On the other hand, release dates are trivial.
Swans can be truly great. Some part of me, perhaps a younger part of me, still feels shame in listening to Swans. I recall there being shame and accusations thrown around Michael Gira, the foundation of Swans. I don't know if anything about that is true. I feel shame right now for reckoning with my own shame, for how I allowed shame to exist without knowing about it.
Honestly speaking, I'm a pretty self-blaming person. If I can find something in myself to blame for a 'bad' situation, I will. It's near-inevitable, at least for the time being.
This sounds insane and pompous to my younger self, but here I go: I've read too much philosophy to not question my own questions.
I've always been prone to black-and-white explanations. Even now, as I hopefully am more prone to nuance than quick and idiotic judgement, I stop myself when I judge young, white males who act just as I have done, the difference being that I often didn't say my idiotic thoughts out loud.
Swans are great. Their music is great. I mean, as in a huge sound that builds. Hearing their music can almost feel like seeing a Hieronymus Bosch painting come to life.
Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, oil on oak panels, 205.5 cm × 384.9 cm (81 in × 152 in), Museo del Prado, Madrid
I think most of the people I love have done deeply shameful shit, stuff they'd rather take to their graves than utter to another human being, let alone put to print.
A moment ago I left my seat in a café to go refill my coffee cup. A person stood next to the dispenser. They had already taken coffee but stood close to the coffee machine, so close that there was no way for anybody else to take their coffee.
I excused myself, took coffee in an unnatural posture due to the existence of the person, but I did not do so because I could, because I had the strength and tenacity to bend my arms, hips, legs, and head in a way that allowed me to do so. I know nothing about the person. I did not know if they were halfway thinking about divorce, getting a cancer diagnosis, winning half a billion something on the lottery, or finding out they were pregnant.
I know nothing about what they thought at the time.
I would personally not want to block others. I would prioritise that. And my shameful self thinks: does this thought mean I think I'm better than the person?
Of course not. I don't believe that any human life is worth more than any other human life.
Do I think some human thought is worth more than other human thought?
Yes, I do. I do not know why or how, but I do know that I don't feel shame for politely making a person who blocks coffee from me aware of my situation, regardless of what's going on in their world.
I feel no shame listening to Swans. I've listened to 32 minutes of 'Rope/The Beggar', the first song on LIVE ROPE. The song is 78 minutes and 21 seconds long in total. There's been a few different crescendi through the song for as far as I've listened. Gira shouts and sings and it's near-Sufi: mystic, hypnotic, coalescing, a much greater thing than the sum of each instrument.
Yesterday my wife told me Morrissey is playing in Dalhalla in Sweden. I can't stand him any more. Twenty years ago I would have taken out a bank loan to be able to see a reunited The Smiths; I've travelled past nation lines to see Morrissey live. Today, he's a conspiracy-theory nut, an empty husk of a person.
At the same time, I will likely never stop listening to the old Smiths albums. Nor will I stop listening to Vauxhall and I, which is (in my opinion), Morrissey's masterpiece. But I will forever listen to it offline. I will not give Morrissey a single cent more of my money.
For a very long time, I played guitar to his live album Beethoven Was Deaf. I loved it. Now, as I hear songs like 'National Front Disco', I can't say if it was written with racist pretense; the songs 'Asian Rut' and 'Bengali in Platforms, however, are vile: the lyrics are basically monologues against Asians moving to England. Very rivers of blood. Fuck you, Morrissey.
Cornershop burning a Morrissey poster.
Cornershop write about their case rather eloquently.
I wish I hadn't been so closed-minded; I wanted to protect Morrissey because he meant so much for me. I wanted to protect him blindly.
On the other hand, I remember a party where a at-the-time friend insulted my wife. The day after we spoke; he expressed no remorse and I told him we were no longer friends and don't contact me any more. I have no shame in doing so and I would do it again if it happened today.
Shame is a tricky subject for me. I was about to put a full stop after 'subject' but no.
Arpeggio synths trickle in and out with Gira's voice, 43 minutes into 'Rope/The Beggar'. The song is beautiful. It heightens things around me, my mood, my head.