eels – The Medication is Wearing Off
There’s a section of road on NC highway 601 that I drive between Charlotte and the Carolina coast where I do some of my best thinking. Sometimes, it’s an excuse to go on long, rambling stream-of-consciousness rants on my twitter; other times it is more ‘serious’ thought. I never know what it will be, of course, until I’m knee-deep in it; at that point, I’m at the mercy of the road to take me where I’m going. I was driving back this evening and on the two-hour stretch I wandered into listening to eels’ Electro-Shock Blues and Daisies of the Galaxy albums. Electro-Shock Blues has always been a very, very important album to me; when it was released I dug deep into its 16 tracks (remember when albums were long?) and read all I could about the man called e and what had put him in the place to write this masterwork. I thought I understood it and at the time I probably got the bullet-point summary that was talked about in the reviews and write-ups. Mark Oliver Everett (that man called e) was struck with several major family traumas near simultaneously with him becoming a bona-fide rock sensation after “Novocaine for the Soul” made it big; as any great artist would do he funneled that grief and pain into his craft and produced what I feel will always hold up as a classic.
It had been several years since I listened to Electro-Shock Blues in full, and tonight it seemed determined to hit me like a sack of rocks. When I had first internalized this album, I had yet to experience death or even serious illness; at this point in my life I’ve seen enough to have the general idea. e’s words resonate with me much more strongly now and there were more than just a few lyrical sucker punches that shocked selective memories out of the last 13 years. That which dug the deepest was from “Dead of Winter” – so I know you’re going pretty soon / radiation sore throat got your tongue / magic markers tattoo you / and show it where to aim / and strangers break their promises / you won’t feel any / won’t feel any pain. I was blindsided and my eyes were definitely far from dry as I finally understood what and who e had written about. It’s not unlike getting a joke a decade later when you’ve had the experiences that make it relevant. And while there’s no targeted lasers involved in the big C that has cannoned into my family I can’t help but feel that these 16 tracks have been put back into my life right now with intent. Be it my subconscious ready to deal with What Is Going On or just some common serendipity, the point is there and I can’t ignore it.
The real denouement of the album comes just after “Dead of Winter” with the subject track of “The Medication is Wearing Off.” There are lyrical and melodic threads in the song repurposed from eels’ “Novocaine” that put the album in perspective; death versus growth, numb from the pain versus letting the feeling back in – being forced to acknowledge the end of that act and the start of the next. “Medication” is not unlike how I feel now. The parts that I’ve been keeping numb to all of This are thawing out and I’m understanding a little more about how to move forward. Everything is OK for now, but I know there’s a lot more to face down the road.
I think that the most important thought of all comes in the final track, “P.S. You Rock My World” – layin’ in bed tonight I was thinkin’ and listening to all the dogs / and the sirens / and the shots / and how a careful man tries to dodge the bullets / while a happy man takes a walk. / And maybe it’s time to live.
I like that sentiment. There’s a power in it, in any time but especially now. So as always, no matter how much time has passed – plug in, and turn it up…
The medication is wearing off / gonna hurt, not a little, a lot
Keep on tickin’ / you’re not lickin’ me
