• Previous part (1)
• Next part (3)

As a solitary dude, all my life I have relied on music to connect with the world at large, to feel that my feelings weren’t that unique or detached from the rest of humanity. Over the years, I’ve returned to certain albums that have spoken to me in ways that can’t be fully put into words. I love discovering new albums, and perhaps that’s also the case for whoever is reading these words, so I’ll spend some of my limited time on Earth sharing some specifics about the albums that have marked me, and that in many ways changed me.

Today’s album is The Moon & Antarctica by Modest Mouse, released in 2000. It’s mostly a breakup album, possibly my favorite. Ages ago I read a review of this album that said something to the effect of, “every previous Modest Mouse album felt like Isaac Brock [the band’s singer-songwriter] was grasping at some truths in the static of an untuned radio station, but in The Moon & Antartica, the station came in clear all of a sudden.” Many of the songs in this album are perfectly attuned to what they’re trying to express, to the smallest piece of music. The result is a bunch of idiosyncratic songs that don’t sound like any other band I know of (I haven’t found “old Modest Mouse-like” anywhere).

This album has accompanied me through heartbreak, through loneliness, through derangement. Plenty of aspects of my self are reflected in these songs.

“3rd Planet”

This song ties together the relationship most of this album refers to, down to a pivotal moment when the future of the narrator’s life could have gone a very different path. It’s raw and mythical, with memorable imagery.

Everything that keeps me together is falling apart
I got this thing that I consider my only art
Of fucking people over

The third planet is sure that they’re being watched
By an eye in the sky that can’t be stopped
When you get to the promised land
You’re gonna shake the eye’s hand

Your heart felt good
It was drippin’ pitch and made of wood
And your hands and knees
Felt cold and wet on the grass beneath
Well, outside, naked, shivering, looking blue
From the cold sunlight that’s reflecting off the moon
And baby cum angels fly around you
Reminding you we used to be three and not just two
And that’s how the world began
And that’s how the world will end

Well, a third had just been made
And we were swimming in the water
Didn’t know then; was it a son, was it a daughter
And it occurred to me that the animals are swimming
Around in the water in the oceans in our bodies
And another had been found, another ocean on the planet
Given that our blood is just like the Atlantic, and how

Well the universe is shaped exactly like the earth
If you go straight long enough you’ll end up where you were

“Gravity Rides Everything”

This song depicts very well the moment in a romantic relationship when you know it’s dying, that she’s looking for the door, and you feel powerless to stop her from drifting away. The inevitability of it all feels like a weight on your feet.

Oh, gotta see, gotta know right now
What’s that riding on your everything
It isn’t anything at all
Oh, gotta see, gotta know right now
What’s that writing on your shelf
In the bathrooms and the bad motels
No one really cared for it at all
Not the gravity plan

Early, early in the morning
It pulls all on down my sore feet
I want to go back to sleep

In the motions and the things that you say
It all will fall, fall right into place
As fruit drops, flesh it sags
Everything will fall right into place
When we die some sink and some lay
But at least I don’t see you float away
And on split milk, sex and weight
It all will fall, fall right into place

“Dark Center of the Universe”

You used to love this person, who also loved you back, but now she has nothing but complaints about the same self that she used to like, and you have little else to offer back but bitterness.

I might disintegrate into the thin air if you’d like
I’m not the dark center of the universe like you thought

Well, it took a lot of work to be the ass that I am
And I’m really damn sure that anyone can
Equally, easily fuck you over
Well, God said something, but he didn’t mean it
Everyone’s life ends, but no one ever completes it
Dry or wet, ice never melts and you’re equally cheated

Well, an endless ocean landing on an endless desert
Well, it’s funny as hell, but no one laughs when they get there

“Perfect Disguise”

It’s done: the relationship is over, and now you’re lingering in the same town, having to watch this woman you used to love and who loved you back waltzing around town, shooting looks at you to figure out if you’re doing worse than her. And even though you don’t want to care anymore, you feel that something fundamental has broken in you.

Well, you’ve got the perfect disguise and you’re looking okay
From the bottom of the best of the worst, well, what can I say?

‘Cause you cocked your head to shoot me down
And I don’t give a damn about you or this town no more
No, ’cause I know the score

Need me to fall down so you can climb up
Some fool-ass ladder, well, good luck
I hope, I hope there’s something better up there

Broke my back
Broke my back
Broke my back

“Tiny Cities Made of Ashes”

A raw, angry, post-apocalyptic song. You’re done with the world, you’re sick of people, and you want to take it out on someone (possibly that woman, maybe not).

We’re goin’ down the road
Towards tiny cities made of ashes
I’m gonna hit you on the face
I’m gonna punch you in your glasses, oh no
I just got a message that said
“Yeah, Hell has frozen over”
I got a phone call from the Lord sayin’
“Hey, boy, get a sweater, right now”

So we’re drinkin’, drinkin’, drinkin’, drinkin’
Coca, Coca Cola
I can feel it rollin’ right on down
Oh, right on down my throat
And as we’re headed down the road
Towards tiny cities made of ashes
I’m gonna get dressed up in plastic
Gonna shake hands with the masses
Oh no!

Does anybody know a way that a body could get away?
Does anybody know a way?
Does anybody know a way that a body could get away?
Does anybody know a way?

“A Different City”

The narrator has moved away from the town that held too many memories. He’s holing up at some dingy apartment, wanting to isolate himself from everything. He feels that he’s losing it.

I wanna live in the city with no friends and family
I’m gonna look out the window of my color TV
I wanna remember to remember to forget you forgot me
I’m gonna look out the window of my color TV

Through the cracks in the wall, slow motion for all
Dripped out of the bars, someone smart said nothin’ at all
I’m watching TV, I guess that’s a solution
They gave me a receipt that said I didn’t buy nothin’
So rust is a fire and our blood oxidizes
My eyes roll around, all around on the carpet
Oh, hit the deck, it’s the decal man
Standin’ upside down and talkin’ out of his pants

“The Cold Part”

Fantastic auditory depiction of that state some people fall into at times: a mix of apathy, loneliness and resignation.

So long to this cold, cold part of the world
So long to this bone-bleached part of the world
So long to this cold, cold part of the world
So long to this salt-soaked part of the world

I stepped down as president of Antarctica
Can’t blame me, don’t blame me

“Alone Down There”

Althought I’m not sure about my interpretation, I always picture that this song is about reaching out to someone who hurt you, possibly even the ex this whole album is about, because that person is suffering. You can’t really help them; you’re sitting at the bottom of a well yourself, but you know how bad it gets. Still, you realize that reaching out to such a person is a terrible idea.

How do, how do you do?
My name is You
Flies, they all gather ’round me and you too
You can’t see anything well
You ask me what size it is, not what I sell
Ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha

Well, I don’t want you to be alone down there
To be alone down there, to be alone
Yeah, I don’t want you to be alone down there
To be alone down there, to be alone
But the devil’s apprentice, he gave me some credit
He fed me a line and I’ll probably regret it
I don’t want you to be alone down there
To be alone down there, to be alone

“Paper Thin Walls”

The narrator has settled down far away from the microcosm that caused him that pain. He’s beginning to take the rest of the world into account once again, but he isn’t the same person he used to be: he feels that he better take things lightly from now on, and stop sacrificing himself for the sake of others. Life in solitude is long and hard, but at least you won’t have to suffer further humiliation.

These walls are paper thin
And everyone hears every little sound
Everyone’s a voyeurist
They’re watching me watch them watch me right now
They’re shaking hands, they’re shaking in their shoes
Oh, Lord, don’t shake me down
Everyone wants two of them
And half of everyone else who’s around
It’s been agreed the whole world stinks
So no one’s taking showers anymore

Laugh hard, it’s a long ways to the bank
I can’t be blamed for nothing anymore
It’s been a long time since you’ve been around
Laugh hard, it’s a long ways to the bank

Tow the line to tax the time, you know
That you don’t owe
I can’t be a fool for everyone
That I don’t know

“What People Are Made Of”

I’m not that fond of this song, but it’s a great closer for the album as far as I’m concerned. The narrator is grasping at profound truths that he has gleaned from this ordeal. The experience has turned him into a different person, someone who will have a hard time connecting with those who haven’t gone through the same thing.

Ragweed tall, better hope that his ladder don’t crack
Or he’ll hit the ground low, hard and under his back
At the battle at the bottom of the ocean where the dead do rise
You need proof, I got proof at the surface
You can watch ’em float by

Way in back of the room, there sits a cage
Inside is the clock that you can win if you can guess its age
Which you never can do ’cause the time, it constantly changes
For lack or luck, I guess that is the saying

On the first page of the Book of Blue, it read
“If you read this page, then that’ll be your death”
By then it was too late, and you wound up on
An island of shells and bones that bodies had left

Brock offers the following lyrics as the closer of this uncompromising, raw ride:

And the one thing you taught me ’bout human beings was this:
They ain’t made of nothin’ but water and shit