Better Prose It

Introduction

Ivan

This is Jake’s story – a man of nature and a man of the world – finding his path of reconnection to the inner and natural form of himself. Did we know this story was going to be about him? Absolutely not! Did we want to write a story about him? Probably and unconsciously yes. 

We started collecting and collating frames of a story in the form of spoken word songs (narrated songs). Putting together each frame made us complete this lively puzzle. Unlike one of those, we didn’t know in advance what the final picture was but we got there by finding each fitting frame.

Jane

In retrospect, my collaboration with Ivan coalesced on the journey and everything came together—if I don’t say so—in a brilliant story-based playlist. I couldn’t be happier with every aspect of this experience, especially considering I didn’t know much about the concept initially. 

Let me rephrase: I did have a general idea when I read Ivan’s call for collaboration in our musicto community’s Circle forum. His concept immediately caught my attention. I loved it. I was curious. I wanted to get started. I had no idea what I was doing! This, of course, ended up being half the fun.

Here’s how the story developed:

Storyline

Belong – R.E.M

Our fictional character is (for now) a child who had a life changing event, probably of disrupting and irreversible nature. He/She doesn’t understand it, but his/her mother does. And she tells him/her to go out to the world changing before her eyes and “belong”. Will he/she ever?

Pale Blue Dot (Interlude) – Story Of The Year

“Pale Blue Dot” by Story of the Year felt like the sort of track you might hear at the start or end of a story. In this case, the start. The tone isn’t as light as the REM track, but the lyrics felt appropriate considering our character is about to embark on a journey. Is that journey local and personal or galactic and universal? Will it be dramatic or fantastic? Maybe all or none of the above.

Transmission for Jehn: Gnossiene No1 (Exclusive spoken word) – Tierney Malone, Geoffrey Muller

Reflecting on humanity and looking at it from an elevated spot is making me zoom out even more. In this undefined space and time a lone traveler, or better, a lone seeker is leaving a message, traveling the universe for unmeasurable distances. 

As much as the message drifts into the void, the microscopic grain of love and regret that message brings is a capsule containing “humanity”. If that’s a lost trait in the world these stories are settled in, then we preserve a bit of it in that sand grain-sized capsule. Will it eventually hit another object – or the specific person it is addressed to –  one day and teach what humanity is?

Full Moon – Eden Ahbez

This song was one of the first that made me start playing with this playlist idea. I think I found it in one Discover Weekly from Spotify, and I fell so in love with the image, the colors (blue and dark green 🙂), the smells of wet grass and all the other feelings that this track evokes. I can imagine that our character had this dream in mind about how to live his life with her beloved one. The dream they could have lived together…

Dream Within A Dream – Propaganda

I specifically dug through the crate (so to speak) for “Dream Within a Dream” by Propaganda. It immediately came to mind upon hearing Abhez’s line, “And dream the dream that dreamers dream”. This track felt like a response to ‘Full Moon’ in some way. And, as a bonus, the lyrics are an Edgar Allen Poe poem, which simply adds an extra layer of meaning.

Ghost Song – The Doors

I really really loved both songs you proposed and I didn’t know which one to pick without feeling guilty for letting the other go! I found connecting songs to each and I feel that both plots bring our PL in directions I like.

Anyhow, from your pack I am choosing Dream Within A Dream and connect it, maybe in too obvious ways, to Ghost Song from The Doors. I like that all the oneiric sense of the poem and how the 8 mins musical long dream trip connects with Morrison’s “Awake”. Although this is an obvious movie scene – zooming on a pair of eyes opening after sleep – the rest of the song is still tapping into the imaginative realm

Nacreous – Tanya Tagaq

I like this Tanya Tagaq track here for a few reasons. First, in “Ghost Song” I’m stuck on the concept of the character being faced with making a choice, and this choice will lead him down one path or another. I don’t know what the theme is at this point in our story, or what the character needs to choose between, but the lyrics at the end of “Ghost Song” stuck with me, “Ghosts crowd the young child’s mind like eggshells”.

“Nacreous” doesn’t have any discernable lyrics. I think some sounds within the track could be mistaken for words, but I like the idea of listeners having to imagine (or make meaning) for themselves. 

The track also has multiple voices, which feel foreign/alien, almost like ghosts. I felt like the track could represent our character being pushed and pulled in different directions by these ghosts (whether real or representative of his choice). 

An added element is the actual song’s meaning. In the Spotify commentary, Tagaq talks about the song being about Nacreous clouds that are both beautiful and terrifying. I love the thought that this is an emotional place our character is in at this moment of his choice…maybe fearful of it, but excited too. Anyhow, I hope I’m not overthinking things! lol

The Conference – Nitin Sawhney

Wow! Just…Wow! I was absolutely absorbed by Tanya Tagaq! I really really liked your take on the incomprehensible speech after Ghost Song, not only for the ghosts image, but also because of the fact of what Morrisons says: “they croon, the ancient ones”, as if this is also anticipating this tight passage among voices and choices.

At the end of this road, I imagine our character to find himself in this big amphitheater where suddenly it’s full of human-like figures, all dressed the same and with all eyes pointing at him. The Conference has started and he is still wondering if he is dreaming or if it’s real, while he tries to understand every possible non-verbal sign to decipher what they are talking about. This is probably turning the story in a more action-dense phase, where anything can still happen in the next chapter.

It’s awesome to me that we ended up in this non-verbal intermission right in the middle of the playlist. I think it helps the dynamics both of the PL and of a potential narration, while opening this up from the initial space/dream theme. Didn’t imagine we would have landed here at the beginning and can’t wait to see our next turn!

Seen and Not Seen – Talking Heads

* This song replaced a previous choice and was added at the end of the PL I had one track stored in cold for long. I always thought about it, that it could fit Jack’s story but I never found the perfect moment earlier:  we were in other creativity flows with our story and it didn’t seem a good fit back then  or I made other choices that seemed better at the time.

All of those heads speaking (talking heads, wink-wink?) opened a moment of self-reflection on our character: which head did he choose for himself? How did he get to morph into the head he/she picked up for this present moment of the story?

Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors – Radiohead

I’ve added “Pulking/Pull Revolving Doors” By Radiohead. It’s actually the first song that came to mind when you wrote:

At the end of this road, I imagine our character to find himself in this big amphitheater where suddenly it’s full of human-like figures, all dressed the same and with all eyes pointing at him. The Conference has started and he is still wondering if he is dreaming or if it’s real, while he tries to understand every possible non-verbal sign to decipher what they are talking about. This is probably turning the story in a more action-dense phase, where anything can still happen at the next chapter.

I think the lyrics in Pulk/Pull put the character back into reality, at a conference, in a round room or as I imagine hall, with multiple doors/entrances/exits. Everyone is dressed the same, so I imagine that’s the status quo in boring suits with boring smiles. Our character feels different, and maybe if they are all pointing at him, they all know he’s different too. Perhaps they’re mocking or bullying him in some way. Or, maybe they’re forcing him to decide to conform or not. 

What does he do? The doors in the song seem like options, but in the end, our character realizes that it doesn’t matter which door he chooses because they are all trap doors and they aren’t offering him a real choice. They aren’t offering him any choice at all—conform is the only decision they think he can make, but… he’s different so… 

What does our character do next? That’s for you to decide with your next song choice.

Jack’s gift – SAULT

I can totally feel the passive/aggressive pressure of the white collars still speaking in konnakol incomprehensible language (to our character) and pointing at the different doors. Maybe pointing at one, to later just push him to another with the same arm that was pointing at the first. Claustrophobic like in those nightmares when you are forced to take a dangerous leap out of a big cliff.

I found a track that comes to the rescue of our hero. I saved this one a while ago, with the intention to check the band a bit better. Apparently SAULT seems kind of a big name, but I have really listened to more than a couple of tracks here and there. Their sounds are interesting to me though. Anyways, as I said in “Jack’s Gift” (is Jack his real name? 🙂 ) a fairy-like protecting inner voice comes to his help. In the presence of “the external, the outside world, the cacophony will try to force your hand”, the inner power of this voice creates the calm state of mind around Jake to make him “stand strong and stand free”. He is finally out of this forest of pulling/pushing hands and arms and counting on his own strength and self-awareness. Not that he is a superhero now! Every difficult decision and event in life is still around  the corner, but this time he found a base to come out strong from a difficult moment.

Drums Of Taksim – Khidja

When we began this journey, we didn’t determine what we were doing and where we were going, but at 11 of 22 tracks, we’re smack in the middle of it. I’ve always viewed the middle of a story as pushing the theme forward, or at the very least showing different angles of the story/character/thematic problem: the good, the bad and the ugly, so to speak. And while I can’t be sure (and yes, as per your last added track we’ll land on Jack as our character’s name) I feel like you’ve been pushing for a coming-of-age story that I’ve been actively resisting. 

But I’m going to lean into it. 

Whether Jack is experiencing his first job in the corporate world, or trying to assert himself in school, one thing we know for sure is that he is navigating a new world away from the protective embrace of his mother, who seems to have pretty massive expectations for him to belong at the beginning of the story. He didn’t have to worry about them at first. He could just be carefree and bask under the sun on the beach, but as he’s grown older he’s struggled and maybe struggled with meeting this expectation to belong. He’s certainly fought with the little angel and devil on his shoulder, or with ghosts in our playlist, and now you’ve brought us to a point where “a fairy-like protecting inner voice comes to his help”—a third presence or voice, if you will, one that is uniquely his or his alone.

In the presence of what you describe as “the cacophony of the outer world trying to force his hand”, Jack’s inner voice creates a calm state to make him stand strong and stand free. You describe Jack as finally out of this forest of pulling/pushing hands and arms and counting on his own inner strength and self-awareness, where every difficult decision and event from here on is faced with a stronger more certain base or with greater independence (if asserting his independence is indeed what he has been struggling with) and confidence in himself/his decisions.

If he’s fighting for his independence, then in my mind he’s fighting against something, and the thing I see him fighting against is the aforementioned expectations—expectations of the mother who wants him to belong, expectations of school, of work, of the world. But among all of these expectations, what does Jack want? Can he truly be independent and free if he can’t answer this basic question? And what does it mean to be independent and free, anyway? 

Up to this point Jack has been living in a youthful dream state. He hasn’t truly faced anything outside of himself that would force him to abandon or fight against the expectations of others. To a degree, Jack may have found inner strength and self-awareness, but the only way he can truly assert his wants and desires, or freedom and independence, is through experience. What must he experience to do all of this? 

I’ve added “Drums of Taksim” by Khidja to our playlist as an example of Jack facing something outside of himself and one step closer to the independence and freedom he appears to want on the surface. Whether or not this is his inner or hidden desire—after whatever else he experiences on our playlist—time will tell.

Fausto – Massimo Volume

Reality slapped right on Jack’s face carries the same weight to his development as his inner search for independence. Or, as you said, to find what he really wants. Maybe this was still in a deep layer of his consciousness and to dig into it, he still needs to find that focus or that event that scraps one layer after the other until he finds it.

Will he ever? I don’t know 

Lyrics in Drums of Taksim were so vivid I could almost touch, smell, feel and grow with the observer’s experience. 

I had a couple of ideas after, some more introspective. But as this is now emerging, Jack experienced something strong to scrap these layers. My next song is an intense and dramatic track in Italian. Also musically, it climaxes in a state of anger described with a brave and drunk night out. In my opinion, it was just perfect after Jack’s last experience.

He has so much inside he needs to vomit from his previous Turkish experience and the drunk night out is just the catalyst of his new vision of the world. He saw this much humanity all at once, this much love for freedom and human rights, or for what’s “right”, and he is also overwhelmed by it. Now that experience can’t be erased: everything he observes in the western world looks like a superficial manifestation of human beings being superficial with each other. Empty like those voices that were pushing him earlier on to make a void choice.  This takes him to harshly judge consumerism and how it can blurry even the brightest minds on the planet.

Is this his final call, fighting for a better world? Or is time and experience just playing tricks on him and giving him just illusions of what really matters? 

My Stomach Is The Most Violent Of All Italy – The Legendary Tigerman, Asia Argento

This is fantastic! And I love the song too. Thank you for some of the Italian interpretation. My mind instantly went to Goethe’s Faust, but the way you’ve so eloquently broken down the song, and the story as you see it right now? That’s invaluable and exciting! Hm. Where will we go from here? 

I’ve cycled through a few songs. I keep changing my mind and coming back to “My Stomach is the Most Violent in All of Italy” by Asia Argento and The Legendary Tigerman. I realize it’s mostly Asia talking, but the song just fits somehow. 

On the surface, the song is about “the morning after” the night with Fausto ( 😉 ), but there’s such a deeper layer of meaning here, and it fits with the meaning we’ve brought our story to at this point. At its most basic, Jack is having one mean hangover, not only from his night but from the whole experience that has made him sick. But as happens with all hangovers, they eventually ease up and we begin to feel better and see the world with less violent illness. Apparently – lol.

Quality Over Opinion – Louis Cole

I have the feeling that time is suddenly compressed around Jack’s events. Coming to think better about it, we started our story with everything floating in indefinite big time frames and galaxy-wide spaces. And the more I think about the flow until now, the narrower the spaces become.

With Quality Over Opinion, I like to imagine this is (one of?) the narrowest point of this story. The hyper-speed idea connections in the lyrics are like a shrinking section of a geometric cone figure. After the hangover comes the moment when you reconnect efficiently ideas, projects and future actions. In this case, Jack’s laying on his bed goes over all of it. He realised that he is “too proud, caring too much, not choosing, sometimes hating, always loving” and that moment of clarity might as well represent the end of the narrow times.

Will he lift the burden and the heaviness of all he had become with experiences? Has he found a way to put things into perspective and come again expanding to how he initially floated in open time and space? Or will other life events put him on a different shrinking cone?

The Story That Changed My Life – The Red Pill

Okay, this is great! I wasn’t really sure where to go, or rather wasn’t sure what track to add, because you certainly laid the groundwork. I think that after this breathless whirlwind, Jack comes to his epiphany. The track I’ve chosen is very quiet. It’s barely a song, although it does have background music, and it’s more of a parable, or at least the artist as a stand-in for Jack telling the parable and what he learned. 

It’s about finding true contentment about true contentment coming from knowing what you want and being satisfied with it, rather than having endless desires that can never be fulfilled. The fisherman represents a simple, fulfilling life focused on meeting basic needs, enjoying the present moment, and finding happiness in relationships, leisure activities, and appreciating the beauty around him. It reminds me of Jack at the beginning of our story before he leaves on his search to belong. 

I think this song represents the lesson that Jack didn’t really didn’t need to search. He had happiness or the potential for happiness, fulfillment, and everything else he ever wanted all along. He simply lost his way (due to everyone else’s expectations perhaps). Jack’s quest now is to return to that simple life. 

Of course, his experiences have made him a bit jaded, and have changed him. He isn’t the same Jack he was when we began this playlist, so how does he get back to that simple life of contentment with all the knowledge and experience he has accumulated, with all the horrors he has seen? His his new quest, I think.

Breadcrumb Trail – Slint

I love this last turn and your interpretation! 

Circling back to the beginning of the playlist and to Jack’s natural/easy life makes so much sense.  I think that’s exactly what our PL needed at this point: your last track helps turn the grainy story more defined and circular, also in light that we slowly approach the end.

After your last track, I think I didn’t have another one in my stash that could strongly connect more dots. Like a classic, this morning I just stumbled on my next track and I think it fits perfectly.

Starting from the title, “Breadcrumb Trail” already hints at what Jack needs to do to find himself and his lost happiness. The whole fortune teller story, the rollercoaster ride, the simplicity described sounded so damn fantastic to me. And behind all of this, I am sure there is a second meaning too. Or I like to think that Slint were thinking about it.

The musical part of the song conveys such a sense of anxiety that you can actually associate everything with death. Inviting the fortune teller (death) for a rollercoaster ride, with her taking him by her hand. 

In a way, I love to think that Jack had this lucid dream: rather than knowing his fortune, he acts to take happiness with the first available source (the rollercoaster) and with who was in front of his eyes. And what a better companion than Death for him, taking him by his hand, showing him what really matters to be happy in life and which feelings he should pursue. Crazy how I connected to this so deeply too.

La Mar – Eden Ahbez

You hinted at what Jack needs to do to find himself and his lost happiness, but I just couldn’t find a track, at least not for this specific moment. However, it occurred to me that this might be a perfect time to circle back to the beach of youth, and who better than Eden Abhez to voice this? 

Normally, I wouldn’t add two tracks by the same artist, but I like that Full Moon is placed at #5 on our playlist and that we are currently five songs away from the end. “La Mar” seemed particularly fitting based on what you wrote. I like the sea as a symbol of the unconscious, death, and eternity, and perhaps this should be the end of Jack’s life or journey…or the beginning? I’ll let you decide.

To The Garden The World – Iggy Pop, Tarwater

Our beloved Jack has had a complicated existence, and to complicate it even more, I’ve added 2 tracks at once. 

This first, To The Garden The World (Iggy Pop, Tarwater) because I couldn’t stop thinking— wait, when did Jack have a son, and with whom? This track bridges that gap, in my opinion, so it’s not necessarily that Jack left his son on the island, but that maybe he was born there upon his return, or born and died. I prefer born. 

That leads to your Paradise Passage Road and my second song…I’ve chosen “Experience”.

Paradise Passage Road – The Durutti Column

I found your last turn and metaphor both sweet and comforting to him. Coming out from the rollercoaster ride with death, getting swallowed by the sea to later being washed up on the shore of (his?) Eden’s Island must be finally a relief for Jack. Also the fact that it’s Eden Ahbez to narrate this piece makes me think that the island is the same he left before.

I imagine him having a son who didn’t leave the island. Now that he is back, I found the son at the doors of becoming an adult. In Paradise Passage Road it’s actually Jack’s son’s perspective: he now doubts that the island is really the only world possible and, as every young man growing into adulthood, he has forces that pushes him to know what’s outside. In fact, he does find it hard to believe that the parrot – everybody spiritually “attached”  to the island – says the sun and the sky are the only things that matter (“words that just don’t seem to tell me why”). 

Experience, Starkey Remix – Ludovico Einaudi, Starkey, I Virtuosi Italiani

I felt like there needed to be a pause, a break from all the talking so that the listener could take a breath, but I also didn’t want a completely instrumental piece. It’s a powerfully emotional piece, and I love that this single line in the remix: “I’ve had plenty of Experience in this.” 

The words give the listener the chance to make a connection between the mother in “Belong” imparting her wishes upon her son, and Jack, now a father, imparting his wisdom (or about to) in Repetition 3D, which is just a terrific choice, Ivan. I also felt that Repetition 3D was the perfect track to wrap our collaborative effort up, so, unless you feel differently, I’ve shuffled it to that spot.

Repetition 3D – Max Cooper, James Yorkstone

There were multiple reasons why I am putting Repetition now: Jack’s testament to his son (“soon my son you will be me / And I will be gone / And when I die lay my body down, far, far along this furthest strand”) and his attempt to clear up why is the nature of Eden’s Island important. The best things are actually free (unlike in Paradise Passage Road) and simple like throwing stones to the sea with your father. I felt this was a very consequential end of Jack’s journey and completes the circle. Maybe a bit cliche-y if you will, but somehow still rich of connections from the story perspective.

Track Listing

• Belong – R.E.M.
• Pale Blue Dot (Interlude) – Story Of The Year
• Transmission for Jehn: Gnossienne No 1 (Exclusive Spoken Word) – Tierney Malone
• Full Moon – Eden Ahbez
• Dream Within A Dream – Propaganda
• Ghost Song – Jim Morrison
• Nacreous – Tanya Tagaq
• The Conference – Nitin Sawhney
• Seen and Not Seen – Talking Heads
• Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors – Radiohead
• Jack’s Gift – SAULT
• Drums Of Taksim – Khidja
• Fausto – Massimo Volume
• My Stomach Is The Most Violent Of All Italy – The Legendary Tigerman
• Quality Over Opinion – Louis Cole
• The Story That Changed My Life – The Red Pill
• Breadcrumb Trail – Slint
• La Mar (2024 Remastered) – Eden Ahbez
• To The Garden The World (EP Version) – Iggy Pop
• Paradise Passage Road – The Durutti Column
• Experience (Starkey Remix / Remastered 2020) – Ludovico Einaudi
• Repetition 3D (Binaural Version – Headphones Only) – Max Cooper

Playlist image by Mohammadreza Charkhgard on Unsplash