I never thought that writing about lyrics would have me looking up how to smoke meth out of lightbulbs, but so goes the life of the blog writer (?). We can often veer off into unexpected directions. And hey, now I'm prepared, should the need to smoke meth ever arise and I don't have a pipe handy.
Anyway. Today's selection is the title track from Jets to Brazil's final album, Perfecting Loneliness. Lead singer/lyricist Blake Schwarzenbach is better known for his previous band, Jawbreaker, which some say was a pioneer group in the punk/emo/indie rock scene. But Jets is the band that I knew about growing up, so Jets is what you're gonna get.
"Perfecting Loneliness" sums up what's great about Jets to Brazil, and is probably my favorite song of theirs. There are moments of hard rock juxtaposed with moments of tenderness and honesty, all underscored by a kind of quiet desperation. It's really too bad that the rest of the album is so hit-or-miss; as such, the song stands as a real what-could-have-been.
Perfecting Loneliness
I'm a long list with no time.
Sunset panic on the street.
Sugar and lightbulbs:
the milk of kindness is behind us now.
With all those stones in your coat,
did you think they wouldn't know?
The tea leaves of trash sheets:
dirty needles and sweets.
Zero to heaven in seven:
a lifetime, a nanosecond.
All the sand in your glass
is going by so fast.
The radio is playing our tune.
I love it, could you turn it down?
The thought of you crying in my room...
I miss you, could you come around sometime?
When the night comes down,
the world becomes a room
under a microscope
with a labcoat and glue.
I'm fixing this hole
with everything I knew.
The music is making my head split.
I love it, could you turn it off?
The thought of you is tearing me in two...
I miss you, could you come around sometime? Sometime?
This list is what went right:
your name is written twice.
'Cause we live like astronauts
and our missions never cross.
The stakes are high--
we're standing by.
There used to be a hundred a ways to put my arms around you--
every one seemed new, natural, and true.
Perfecting loneliness 'til nothings holding us.
Consider Earth:
we could be the first.
-----------------
What is there to take from this song? As I alluded to in the intro to this post, the drug references are heavy and come often. "Perfecting Loneliness" is centered around a methamphetamine addict, and Schwarzenbach describes the conditions of her living: she's surrounded by "sugar and lightbulbs...trash sheets...dirty needles and sweets". The sugar, sweets, and lightbulbs are the clues here that what we're dealing with is meth: lightbulbs can be used to smoke it, and addicts coming off of it often crave sweets uncontrollably. Also, Schwarzenbach talks about "all those stones in [her] coat"...stones = rocks = crystal meth. There we go.
So the girl in the song has become an addict and her life seems unpleasant and also a total mess, but she probably wasn't always this way; Schwarzenbach probably used to date her, as he discusses "the radio...playing [their] tune" and says "I miss you, could you come around sometime?" He also knows the seriousness of her condition, acknowledging that "all the sand in [her] glass/is going by so fast"; if something doesn't change, she's going to die. This situation then clarifies some of the other lines in the song, such as in the beginning when Schwarzenbach states that he has "no time" and there is "sunset panic on the streets". Schwarzenbach is trying to find and help the girl before she uses again, but "when the night comes down/the world becomes a room/under a microscope/with a lab coat and glue", referencing to a meth lab.
I can't go further without pointing out what a strange structure this song has. Not the traditional verse/chorus/verse/chorus by any means, instead it goes something like this: verse/verse/bridge/verse/bridge/chorus/outro. It's generally not the best idea for your song's chorus to only play once, because that...is kind of not the point of a chorus. Nevertheless, that's exactly what happens here, so we had better pay it very close attention.
"This list is what went right:/your name is written twice". This isn't the first place that Schwarzenbach talks about lists. The very first line of "Perfecting Loneliness" states "I'm a long list". As much as these two statements might help clarify the other, it's still a very vague premise. Still, I'll take a shot. If Schwarzenbach is himself a "list"-- well, what are we made up of? Memories, experiences, feelings. If this girl's name is "written twice" on his list, that must mean that what he's shared with her is more important to her than any other part of his life. She's the part of him that is most treasured, and everything that "went right" for him.
So now we can understand why he's so distraught. This person, once so important to him, is spiraling out of control. As sung in the bridge, Schwarzenbach's helplessness is "tearing [him] in two", but he's unsure what to do about the situation and feels the girl drifting further and further away-- leading to the chorus' metaphor "we live like astronauts/and our missions never cross". Once so close, the two now travel in different circles, and their lives are almost entirely separate.
"The stakes are high:/we're standing by"...the stakes, obviously, being not only their relationship but the girl's life. All he feels he can do is wait to see how things turn out.
In the outro to the song, Schwarzenbach describes the way that things used to be in this relationship-- warm, safe, comfortable. "There used to be a hundred ways to put my arms around you--/every one seemed new, natural, and true". An amazing, understated way to describe the comfort of a great relationship. But now their arms aren't around each other, and Schwarzenbach misses the person that the girl used to be ("perfecting loneliness 'til nothing's holding us").
He ends by begging the girl to "Consider Earth:/we could be the first". To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what this means, but it somehow manages to infuse at least a glimmer of hope into the song. Keeping with the metaphor of astronauts, maybe it makes more sense to think about these lyrics from the perspective of those in outer space, where the view of Earth is (I've heard, not experienced) absolutely breathtaking. Perhaps Schwarzenbach here just wants her to have a new perspective on life, to consider the beauty that exists not only on earth but in the universe at large. Essentially saying 'you have so much to live for'.
As for "we could be the first"...well, they certainly wouldn't be the first two people to overcome addiction or to stabilize their lives and relationship. Still, there's something to be said for how being in love can cause us to feel like we're the only people out there who have ever felt a certain way or experienced certain things. If the vast universe causes us to expand our worldview, love causes us to narrow it-- not necessarily in a bad way. Perhaps Schwarzenbach is just describing that exhiliration, how good it would feel if things somehow worked out-- like they were the only people to ever have a happy ending to their story.
I am open to other interpretations.
Continuing on, the song slowly trails off toward its ending, bringing the astronaut metaphor into reality by steering the listener through space; clips of different NASA transmissions are played in the background. I'm unsure of the source of all of them, but from what I can make out, they're at the very least from the Apollo 8 and Apollo 11 missions, Apollo 11 including the first people to reach the moon. So maybe we are really supposed to think about the visions of the Earth that the astronauts must have had from that perspective. Regardless, it gives the listener the impression of floating out there in the darkness with Schwarzenbach.
I'll leave you with one of the few audible lines of the transmissions. It's the last one in the song, and perfectly sums up "Perfecting Loneliness," so much so that I can't really add anything else:
"It's a magnificent sight out here...magnificent desolation."
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