SOUNDTRACK: PERFUME GENIUS-Tiny Desk Concert #627 (June 12, 2017).
Perfume Genius is a delicate-sounding band. Singer Mike Hadreas has a gentle voice. Oon the first song he’s almost drowned out by the (relatively quiet) guitar from Tom Bromley. The songs are also deeply personal–he wrote most of the new album as a love letter to his boyfriend (the keyboardist Alan Wyffels).
Hadreas’ voice is really affecting, especially when you can hear him clearly.
“Valley” is in waltz-time (with the guitar keeping rhythm for much of the song before the drums and keys come in). The drums (by Herve Becart) are simple but wonderfully deep and resonant
“Slip Away” reminds me (and I can’t believe how many singers have sounded like this guy to me) of the band Dear Mr. President, a kind of aching falsetto. The guitar is a little louder, rockier. But the best part of the song (and the part that does not remind me of DMP) is the gorgeous chorus where everyone sings along to some “ooohooh.”
The final song is an older one called “Normal Song” it is just Hadreas and Wyffels and it is the most tender and delicate song yet. Hadreas plays some simple, quiet chords (in waltz time again) as he sings:
“Take my hand when you are scared and I will pray,”
“… And no secret, no matter how nasty, can poison your voice or keep you from joy.”
The delicate ringing keys in the middle of the song are really pretty and I like the way they don’t play while he is singing–it’s just him and his guitar.
[READ: December 28, 2011] “Fly Already”
The premise of this story is at once humorous and horrifying.
And on a reader’s note: as an American unless told otherwise, I imagine all stories are set here (I assume that’s not an uncommon reaction to fiction). So even though I know that Keret is not writing in America, often his stories don’t really need a location (which is awesome). But then he gives away one detail that makes you realize the story isn’t set here. That detail will come in a moment.
As the story opens, a man and his son, P.T. are walking to the park. En route they see a man on top of a building. The boy (who is 5) says, “he wants to fly!” But the father knows a more reasonable (and terrible) reason why the man is on the roof of the builidng looking over the edge.
Switching into empathetic mode, he tells the man that nothing is so bad that it’s worth dying for. He promises the man that the pain will lessen. But he man either can’t or won’t hear him.
When the man shouts “How much can I take?” P.T. asks if he has super powers and then shouts, “Come on fly already!”
Then we see why the narrator can be so confident in his insistence that things will get better. A brief and shocking story of sadness and regret follows. Especially when a detail given later compounds the pain.
As the narrator is trying to figure out what to do, the boy has given up: the man’s not going to fly, let’s go to the park. But the father believes that he has a duty, a responsibility, to this man (despite his therapist ensuring him that it’s not his job to save everyone…a great detail).
And then he decides to act. He grabs P.T. (who resists) and runs into the building. P.T. is screaming the whole way, causing a huge ruckus. Of course a man carrying a screaming child (who nobody knows) up to a rooftop is certainly going to cause a commotion.
The detail that made me realize the story wasn’t set in America was when a woman in the house opens her door at the commotion. She gets involved and we soon learn that her name is Liat. It’s the same name as his wife and the throwaway comment is “It’s a common name.” Now, I’ve never even heard of this name before, which is how I know this story isn’t set in America. That’s totally irrelevant, but interesting to me.
The last two sentences of the story juxtapose sadness and happiness brilliantly.
One of the things I’ve admired about Keret’s writing is how concise and compact it is. This story does so much in just a few pages and those last two lines are just an amazing summary of the whole story. I’m sure some of that is because of the translation by Sondra Silverston), but the credit has to go to Keret for the powerful writing.
Leave a Reply