Some of you may have noticed that in the graphic for our single ‘Escalating Ruination’ that the word, ‘Escalating’ was misspelt ‘Escalting’. This was a mistake. Now I could seek to change this, but it just seems too poetic to me, too perfect in its imperfection. Back in my twenties, I wrote a series of poems called the ‘Mistake Poems’ sometimes spelt MsTake for effect. The idea came about from mishearing or misunderstanding things I heard, such as the word, ‘flowers’ , which I once heard as ‘for all hours’.
As a singer unfortunately I don’t have perfect pitch. Now I could these days go through every performance with a fine tooth comb and perfect each note with some form of auto-tune, but why? Are the Beatles harmonies all in perfect pitch? No they are not. Does Bob Dylan sing in perfect pitch? No he does not? Does every blues bend to perfect pitch? Etc etc. I’m not perfect. Surprise surprise . We are not perfect. “One by one we’re all made of mistakes. “ - this is actually a line in one of the other songs on the album, ‘Trouble’. And escalating ruination may well be a mistake, if the prolonging of our species is in fact something you hope we do. The verses of the song are deeply personal, but the chorus is universal- “coz I must be a part of something special now - down - Escalating in our ruination - down down - coz we all must fall down” - those words were a personal lament on the current state of things. We all want to feel to feel special. It makes us so gullible and susceptible to trickery. We read some emotionally potent oversimplification and it triggers our sense of righteousness, and you know how pride comes before a fall, so off we go jumping on our high horse , “The sheeple this” or “the science that” , like somehow we are only ones with a clear understanding and the others are just blind or stupid. Right against left. Conservatives against progressive. Or religion against religion or the war between the sexes or the gender debates - whatever it is , we’re right and they’re wrong. It has really affected me over the years and this chorus is a lament to that and to all the folly of our human ways, but the beauty and meaning in the mistake poems that I wrote in my twenties, was all about how somehow these all too human mistakes were integral to life itself. No Resurrection with the fall in the garden. And we'd have no great come back stories, and we all love a good come back story right ? :) Every journey begins with the fools fall. Falling in love etc etc. And we learn from our mistakes, hopefully, or we don’t and we repeat them over and over again and they become part of us, part of what makes us unique. We see the flaws in our family members and we love them just the same. Sometimes we not so kind to ourselves, but at the end of the day, we are flawed , we are not perfect, we are not Gods. We may hope that Ai or robots might get closer to perfection than us, but I highly doubt being that it is an extension and invention of our own flawed selves.
We will never photoshop the life out of life, but if we do it will be a great loss, for the beauty, the pathos and the meaning is made in the falling- it’s in the mistakes - so I’m choosing to leave the spelling mistake in the graphic as it is. Maybe those who notice the mistake, will notice the mistake in the act of escalating ruination also? Who knows? If you like, you’re welcome to correct it, but I think I’ll just leave it there. ;) with heart, Andy
Comments