Queens of the Stone Age Songs for the Deaf

Noise Pollution #12: God is in the Radio


Note: I wrote this well before the news that Roe was in the process of being overturned but I think it’s important that I come back and add a simple fact that has nothing to do with the rest of this piece. That fact? A woman’s body is no one’s business but her own. Fuck every single one of you “keep government out of my life” assholes that somehow think that this intervention is an ok exception, especially when you’re only pro-life when it comes to the unborn but wouldn’t lift a finger to help a sick child, the homeless or anyone else that Christ hung around with in that book you keep telling everyone you love so fucking much.

I tend to try to have innocuous conversation when I first meet “normal” people, especially in a work setting. Trying to explain what it is I do or am into is a fucking chore and I’m sure at least a few of you reading this will pick up what I’m putting down. So when I had a conversation with one of my new hires a few years ago, one of those “getting to know you in the workspace” type chats, she asked me what my desert island record would be. When I told her it was probably Queens of the Stone Age‘s Songs for the Deaf she told me I was full of shit and just naming something I thought she’d heard of.

I tend to be an excellent hiring manager, as per the example of a new employee calling what sounded like my bluff. And, under most normal circumstances, she’d have been right, but I was being completely sincere. I had two other choices (Mark Lanegan Blues Funeral or the 2003 self-titled Killing Joke record–all three having some tangential connection to Dave Grohl) and while they’re both near the top of my list, I’ve come to realize that twenty years after I first picked it up Songs for the Deaf is my favorite record of all time.

At least for the last twenty years.

Songs for the Deaf is the very definition of someone capturing lightning in a bottle (I promise that’s the last time I use that cliche for at least a few months). It would be Grohl’s only full-length appearance with the band, and Mark Lanegan and Nick Oliveri’s last big contributions, with Oliveri getting fired afterward and Lanegan (also reportedly “fired”) stepping back to only offer minor appearances over the next few records. It’s the middle of an incredible three album run (with Rated R and the underrated and fucking morose Lullabies to Paralyze as bookends) which all capture unique emotion and are all, in my eyes, perfect records. They’re also records that once the weather turns even slightly warmer returns to a strong rotation in my life, regardless of what I’m going through or how I’m feeling.

The first time I heard the record was towards the end of summer, 2002. The previous few months had been a time of profound musical and spiritual growth occurring after my doctor had put me on the first (of many) antidepressants. It would be the last full year that I experienced any youthful exuberance towards anything, before I fell into years of untreatable depression and drug abuse that I wouldn’t crawl out of for years. In a sense Songs for the Deaf can be seen as the absolute end point of innocence in my life.

I don’t know what it was that really caused me to latch onto Songs for the Deaf. The combination of the songs’ genre fluidity or the fact that the lyrics were both witty and had depth to them was fascinating. There was (is) just something about this record that captivates me no matter how many times I’ve listened to it, which is probably in the fucking upper hundreds (if not thousands) by now. Even the radio skit intros work to make this record its own little sub-contained world, a feat that is pretty fucking difficult even by most bands that make it their MO to build sonic experiences. When it came out it really didn’t fit into any established space in terms of my listening habits, but 2002 was all about finding records like that for me, a pretty uncomfortable journey truth be told. By the beginning of 2003 I’d subjected anyone who spent a modicum of time with me to this record, including extensively during the recording of Krieg’s The Black House and a subsequent fest where we stayed at the same house as Black Witchery (who introduced me to Sub-Basement as a countermeasure). It became a record I spent hours with my (then) girlfriend talking about or listening to when we drove around. That was around the end of the good times and I entered into a long downward spell of mental illness and drug use. Imagine a dramatic fade to black.

I’ve written about how the summer of 2011 was a pivotal moment in pulling myself out of the emotional fucking mess my life had been the previous seven or eight years. It was the summer that Mark Lanegan’s Bubblegum helped bring me back to life. One thing that spurred me into diving head first into Lanegan’s discography was Songs of the Deaf‘s return into heavy rotation. I was working at a record store that was located on the Ocean City boardwalk so it didn’t seem like the most terrific idea to be playing death or black metal since half the store was loaded with surf shop kitsch and, frankly, especially after the last year prior, I really needed something else to soothe the rawness that was my emotional and mental state. This ended up being the triumvirate of Queens records I spoke about a few thousand words ago, Lanegan’s solo work and Nick Oliveri’s 2nd and 3rd Mondo Generator records. All music made by well adjusted, stand up gentlemen, but it did the fucking trick. Yet this time around I fixated on the lyrics most of all. And through them I found a whole new meaning to this record I’d already spent a decade with. These were the words of someone who had fallen but was dusting themselves off and standing again.

The blind can go get fucked…lie besides the ditch…this halo ’round my neck..has torn out every stitch…

The titular song wraps up the record with the most perfect song on what I consider a perfect album, playing to every member’s individual strengths and the last time they would convene in a recording under this configuration. I can only dream of creating a musical statement like this.

I could go and tell you every other instance of when this record was important to me but I think you get the fucking picture. My most recent memory of importance regarding this record was driving my year old daughter to sit disinterestedly on the lap of some poor fucker in a bunny costume and making sure to play her the entire record from start to finish on the drive, talking to her the whole time about it in an effort to prepare her for men talking at her about records she doesn’t give a fuck about later in life. It’ll be a memory I’ll cherish and another one to file under Songs for the Deaf. So yes, Claire, I wasn’t bullshitting when I said this was my favorite record.

RIP Mark Lanegan. This video is probably the best version of “A Song For the Dead” I’ve heard. See you back in two when I bring up two bands that have taken fucking forever to do new records. I’m sure you’re thrilled.