SOUNDTRACK: RA RA RIOT-“Endless Pain/Endless Joy” (2019).
In 2007, Ra Ra Riot released an album of chamber pop loveliness. There were strings and lots of soaring melodies. The songs were gentle and sweet and the lyrics were thoughtful.
Twelve years later and I would never have guessed this was the same band.
“Endless Pain/Endless Joy” starts with crashing drums and a fast bass line. The lyrics are sung in his high register but they are almost whispered, or at least sound like they are far away. After the first verse, the bass doubles down and the rumble grows.
When the chorus finishes, the guitars come clanging in, angular and discordant, playing a clash of sounds for a few measures before departing.
The second half of the song increases the urgency with the fast paced drums and bass, but it adds lots of backing sounds–synth stabs, guitar swirls and other noises until, with ten seconds left, that clatter comes back–crashing through to the end.
It’s largely the same band members, but wow, what a difference a decade makes.
[READ: August 20, 2019] “Floating Bridge”
Neal and Jinny have been together for over 20 years. Jinny is 42 and Neal is 16 years older. She always assumed she’d outlive him. Then she got the news.
The oncologist said the news wasn’t great.
Neal went to pick yup the girl who would be staying with them to help out. He knew her because she worked in the kitchen of the The Correctional Institute where he worked.
The girls’ name was Helen. She was tough but Neal tried to break through her shell–that’s the way he was.
I loved this observation:
Helen spoke in a hard, flat tone of antagonism and distrust, but even that, Jinny knew by now should not be taken personally. It was just the way some people sounded–particularly country people–in this part of the world.
Helen had grown up on a farm. When she was fourteen, she beat up her abusive father and ran away. The police rescued Helen and her sister Muriel and set them up with a foster family. The two girls were of normal intelligence and temperament, but they had to start first grade as teenagers, which they obviously hated.
On the way back home they had to stop at the hospital where Helen’s sister worked, to pick up Helen’s shoes. She came back shortly without them–she was told she couldn’t be in the building without her badge–even though they knew her. Plus, Muriel forgot to bring them anyway.
Neal offered to go to Muriel’s house to get the shoes, but Helen is resistant. He says, “We’re going to have to drive around an around till you get ready to tell us.”
Eventually she relented and took them to her foster family’s house. They were super kind and her foster father, Matt, immediately invited her inside.
Jinny had not been feeling well the whole day. She was exhausted from driving around. The car was hot and she felt worm out from fanning herself. Even though the house was air conditioned, she preferred to just stay in the car in the shade. Neal was embarrassed about that but she didn’t care.
After a while, Matt came back out. He was pleasant but Jinny found him vulgar–especially when he told a joke about trying to catch a horse with horse radish and asking what you might catch with pussywillow.
Finally, Matt gave up and went back inside.
When he left, Jinny decided that she would go to the bathroom right there. She wore a muumuu and no underwear so she squatted and relieved herself.
As she finished up a young boy on a bicycle came up the drive. He was very friendly and either didn’t notice or didn’t say anything about the puddle.
He invited her inside but when she said no, he realized that she might want to go home. So he offered to drive her home, saying that Matt could drive Neal and Helen back to the house and pick him up.
It would be nice to be home so she agreed.
He took her a secluded way–a road that hardly anyone knew about. And he enjoyed driving without the lights on in the dusk because putting the lights on would make tunnel of darkness to drive through.
She realized that if she were younger or not in the condition she was in, she might be afraid of him. But she wasn’t He spoke admiringly of the place. Then she realized that the spot he was driving along was actually very peaceful. Lovely. A spot that one might bring a girlfriend to.
The ending is surprising and funny and remarkably sweet.
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