This is me, This is Who I am
Song: Bleed - Dead Calm https://open.spotify.com/track/6yR4gnNVG4RZQjmouHNmb2?si=78415e2ff20e4fc0
UnfinishedLeaf
I was so so happy when I saw the music video to this song, so I had to write this dumb essay. I think I would call this my favorite song of this year, especially after this video. To see Liam McCay take an aesthetic direction like this, excited me—I love that name Liam btw. I initially came across Liam under a different moniker, signcrushesmotorist or something, he has also gone under other names, he would do this thing, releasing sets of songs under different names which I guess were his version of albums.
I found Liam through TikTok OK, and honestly he is that kind of artist. It's engineered to be most melancholic, despair-inducing, heartstring-pulling, sort of music. His fanbase are all depressed teenage girls, the sort to have had crying bart simpson phone lockscreens in 2015. Look we are all products of our time—there is nothing to be ashamed of. And I don't doubt Liam really sings about what happens to him, but look back to the song.
I was so happy to see a music video like this, completely on its head, poisoned with irony, the opposite of what you would expect; snapbacks, baggy jeans, jerseys, gang signs, midwestern emo, lyrics about death. You see, I'm always anxious to explore deeper into the stories of the songs I love, I'm afraid it will reveal itself to be something else which completely ruins it to me. I take these things in such specific—honestly cartoonishly unrealistic ways—so when I find out the songs I beheld and exalted were actually... well, real... it can ruin them for me. Sometimes it even makes me hate the songs, and when that happens it turns into what feels like a tremendous loss, like they say "never meet your heroes". I work so much to avoid seeing music videos, statements form the artist, larger works, things like that, this one popped up on my feed without me knowing and pleasantly surprised me.
Why do I love this song so much? Take a look at it's artwork, no seriously what the hell is going on here, it's the juxtaposition. The game cards all up in the air, little guy squirming on the floor, all this chaos probably in someone's basement, accompanied by the most sorrowful, gut wrenching words with a carelessly addictive melody. To me this song is about strength, struggle, and the overcoming of that very sadness through a chemical scream of passion. Begrudgingly—insecure, scared—a scrawny guy's heroic saga. Really, it's a campfire tale of the story.
But look, I love it in other ways too. My current thing right now is resolving this aspect of mine, the parts that I refuse to take accountability for, yet define me. To me it seems like a very bad irony laced joke—I mean life in general is. We live our lives backwards, the future is kinda lame to us, whenever we talk about it we only do so in jest, we truly only exist in the past. My generation is drenched in irony, and if you're anything like me you haven't spoken straight in the past week and you're four layers deep in some back-and-forth meme. A generation that's both embarrassed and narcissistic at the same time, nothing makes sense, and everyone just makes fun of themselves now.
In this song, I'm confronted by the juxtapositions of nostalgia with embarrassment, of genuine romance with the fact that I'm listening to emo music. It has a serious meaning but is also kinda like a joke. Moving through these motions I've now realized that the resolution of these affects has to involve treating and living them like they were real. Take a really sad song and play with it in your head. Just like Liam took this song and made a music video dressed up like some kind of wigger.
It is the unique art of this era, of it's time but still unique and innovative within it. It could only be this way. I identify with this sorta mess, This is who I am.
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Wish I had a gun
Faster than everyone could run
Over to me
When I start to bleed
On a summer's night
I start to choke and I see the light
Then I'm brought back down
Fallen to the ground
You're killing me with your words
You've chewed me up and spat me out
And boy it really hurts
To see you and him
Be so in love, it makes me sick
Leaves bruises on my skin
And I can't take it anymore
I'll just have to leave you behind
And try and shut the door
Because I'm losing my will to go on