Doomsday, Echoing on

How I waited so long for this
melt into eternal bliss
steal me, break me down
while we are burning out
If it's a dream please don't say
I need to know you, doomsday


Imagine a moment when reality becomes so clear everything clouded and murky is wholly removed leaving only a feeling of completeness. In a beautifully violent moment, like seeing the black expanses of space after the world rips away from underneath. So unreal it might only seem like a dream, but my wait for this experience is the root of Doomsday.

Doomsday isn't a song about the literal end of the world, but the end of a thought. A spiritual moment when I lost an idea of myself. It is not a negative moment, though the song plays dark, but it is a jarring one. The unexpectedness of a realization can be frightening and tinted with sadness but it is also soothing. The change itself is beautiful.

Nothing ever so loud
than the silence after a cloud
darkness ain't never so black
to look inside all we lack
if it's a dream, please don't say
I need to know you, doomsday

Everyone has lost, and will continue to lose, but that doesn't make an interesting story. But what if I'd needed the loss? Waited for it. Anticipating. That was more unexpected to me. That was the part of the story that drew me. Wanting change. Loving it, because when life is altered so drastically, more of our self emerges. And that revelation can be devastating and blissful. Every moment that has brought what initially felt like an ending into my life: graduations, birthdays, relationships, deaths, has been an opportunity to learn change.

Doomsday wasn't originally as modern or synth-y as it came out, but I love the vibe. Dan really pushed the direction and he was right. The soundscape is beautiful. The song structure is folk-blues, with a warped solo for a bridge. Recently we have reworked the song for a three-piece and I have gotten to take over the solo duties, which is a lot of fun. The solo is brutal and destructive: mountains falling, volcanoes erupting and all the bombast. The falling chord progression underneath really carries emotion. The beat and the main riff are almost studio one-style, it is a bit of a mind trip to play and sing, but really fun once I start feeling and stop thinking about it.

*

How do you know when it's done? When is anything over? Events rarely erupt in one catalyzing moment that defines the future. Life moves slower. Dies slower. And also continues on, echoing on into the future. Giving another frame after the one before. The moment a relationship ends is usually not when we try to name or define it, but long before. In some unassuming look, or a careless word. A seed of doubt. A drop of poison. Growing. Quietly building strength, 'til the moment there is more doubt than trust. That tipping point, the closest thing we can call an end, is always unknown, but is the moment I was looking for. I don't think it is ever discoverable.

How I waited so long for you
faith, my soul, kept me true
even here, at times end,
it's true some faith must bend
if it's a dream please don't say
I need to know you, doomsday

The When... Now I'm sure that when is unimportant. Change is inevitable. I have to accept impermanence rather than resist it. It comes to my door like a stranger, on a day like any other. I don't need to worry about when or how, that is exhausting. The value in anticipating change comes from having an open heart. Not trying to shut it out, but welcoming it in. The character is ready, maybe a bit obsessively, but completely open.

As one moment ends, another comes in to take its place. And so moves on, being moved.

Do you know how many times we've cut out this weed?

Wrapping a hard fist over root...how many times it came back again?

I heard- less than you the have strength to pull it,

More than the hands to wrap around it again

-rene


*Image from: http://what-buddha-said.net/Pics/impermanence.of.body.jpg

Pilot In The Sky, Out of the Unknowing

I won't give you up
somehow I've taken more than you'll allow
when I think about it, I can't live without it
destiny don't matter much
just an end no man can touch
pilot in the sky
reflecting light

Lennon once described God as "a concept by which we measure our pain." I have a different view of it. If you were to make God a concept, some keep it a fact and that's ok too, I think the concept would be a complete measure of all things and experiences, pain, happiness, boredom... Sometimes I rely on faith, when things seem bad, and in that sense I understand Lennon's statement, but God doesn't have to be relegated to only our hardships. It can be if we want included in the best part of our lives, the mundane parts too. So I would say God is a concept through which we measure life. If you believe in God, and if you don't too, God could be the totality of all things, in which there is nothing that is not under its umbrella, so there would be truly no division. All God, No God same thing, a name, a reflection.

I think here I should mention, that Pilot In The Sky, was a group write. We came up with the chorus in the studio. Everyone shouting out ideas. It really is a group Hacienda + Dan song. So I can not give you a definitive story of it's writing process, each member will have a different prospective of it's origins and meanings, and this is more about what Pilot means to me today. Also I will mention that group writing is a lot of fun, though sometimes trying. I think there are a lot of moments where you can hear different personalities really pop out. Abe did an amazing piano performance through out the song, and Jaime's drums are so tasteful. Myself, for the most part, tried to keep my bass simple and out of the way. Dante's vocal performance is very unique and full of character, and if I remember correctly Dan is providing a very psychedelic ambiance on the wah-wah guitar. Overall it is the song we spent the most time on. Trying to get the feel right, and it is oozing with vibe.

God and religion are touchy subjects for me. They are, to be honest, ones I don't completely feel comfortable writing about. As part of my make-no-stance attitude of rock music, I feel its best to leave those topics to other artists. I don't think there is any shortage of religious based music in the world and Pilot in The Sky isn't by any means a religious song, but just a song that could be interpreted that way.

Recently I have had a lot of change in my life, and it has led me to a state of constant contemplation, so that is the way I'm reading this song. I imagine everyone has periods of intense ups and downs, people seem to be very dramatic creatures, so I won't say that my life is unique in this, pardon me while I keep vague, but the intensity of my feelings do not seem to be part of the average daily experience. By far the most intense change being the loss of my mother who passed away a few years ago. This change forced me to look at the world differently, look at myself differently. I began questioning a lot of the beliefs I had. I feel a lot better having gone through my personal interrogation, and those questions crept up into the writing of this album. So though I didn't start out or intend to talk about some things, they ended up coming out of me. I think Shakedown is by far the most spiritual album we done, and I am happy with that. 

I've always been a little bit skeptical of religion, partly from experience and partly from my love of science. I would consider myself a skeptic about most things, and I consider a line about Destiny with that sort of distance: don't matter much, just an end no man can touch. If something like destiny/planning existed, than there is no escaping it, so why worry? If it doesn't, we still know- well as far as we know, things only happen one way and it's unchangeable. No one can go back and change the past, to add to John Lennon's list of "don't believes" I add: Time travel. The future is made concrete by the present, out of all the choices there is one course of action taken. So plan/no-plan happen with the same result. To believe or not only changes how I perceive the events. Am I in charge? Am I capable of acting? Or am I destined?

check out the starz commercial with Pilot...

These are all really exciting questions and ones I will continue to think about till the day I am no longer able to at all. The chorus speaks to me because it is the way I view the world. A lot of questions, no answers but punched-up with a healthy dose of determinism. No matter what way I look at it, I think it all comes down to our actions. How we live and how it affects others. God/No-God, Fate/No-Fate comes to a personal belief, but it's the actions of those beliefs that create the consequences of our lives. I'd love to know how you guys feel...

Pilot is one of many vague-morphing songs. A song I know is telling me something, even if I can't quite put my finger on it. The lyrics are as searching as I am. I will come back to it in a few years, months, days and have a different outlook, and I think that's beautiful. Maybe that is the greatest thing about music and religion. In the mystery, out of the unknowing, everything is possible. Anyone can project on to it, and pull from of it innumerable meanings. I try to understand something, and find out the only thing to really understand is myself.

in a worn out two-room shack on empty floors,
I think of you

in vast supermarket lines of  tedious measure,
I think of you

in deepest suburban holes of sterile nothing, where I think the saintly would not go

you were already there

waiting in runoff alleys, desperation corners and pavements clawed with jagged nails,
I think of you

in smiles covered in cellophane-sheen like high-rise towers and super complexes,
I think of you

where i found there is no such thing as an empty inhalation,
to know I'm never not taking

you were already there



-rene


PS. I've always been more of a My Sweet Lord guy: