It occurs to me that all the greatest spirituals are about death, and not life. And not just the old gospel tunes, but the new, secular ones as well. The old songs consoled us by envisioning the life to come. The new ones console us by means of a final moment of utter self-recognition. Take the Mountain Goats’ “Against Pollution,” in which John Darnielle sings, “When the last days come/We shall see visions/More vivid than sunsets/Brighter than stars/We will recognize each other/And see ourselves for the first time/The way we really are.”
Bright Eyes plumbs similar depths in the great “At the Bottom of Everything.” It’s a story song about the fatal plunge of a passenger aircraft into the ocean, and the words of consolation a man speaks to the terrified woman in the seat next to him.
Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst sets the scene in his speaking voice without musical accompaniment, leading up to the moment when the plane’s mechanics fatally fail, the plane plummets, and the pilot says “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Oh my God,” at which point an acoustic guitar kicks in and the woman says, “Where are we going?” To which the man beside her calmly replies, “We’re going to a party. It’s, it’s a birthday party. It’s your birthday party. Happy Birthday darling. We love you very very very very very very very much,” then commences to sing.
He sings, amongst other things, about how “death will give us back to God/Just like the setting sun/Is returned to the lonesome ocean,” at which juncture Oberst takes over and sings ecstatically, “And then they splashed into the deep blue sea/Oh it was a wonderful splash.” And how can I sum up the oddness and sublimity of that joyous cry? Only by holding onto the hope that all of our questions, the important questions about who we are and why we’re here, will be answered in the final flickering moments in this life. Which is the promise the man delivers towards the song’s end: “And then when we get down there/Way down to the bottom of everything/And then we’ll see it/Oh we’ll see it/Oh we’ll see it/We’ll see it.”
I find comfort in those words, just as I do in Danielle’s words, because the idea of being swept off this planet without having any idea why I was here in the first place frightens me and plunges me into despair. But what do they see, his doomed passengers? Oberst’s revelation isn’t Darnielle’s revelation. Instead he sings, “I’m happy just because/I’ve found out/I am really no one.” How Buddhistic and liberating! The veil of Maya parted at last, Satori by means of catastrophe!
The old-timey Gospel songs either send you to Heaven or Hell. They’re songs of revelation. Darnielle and Oberst acknowledge death as revelation as well—but not of where we’re going, but where we’ve been, and what it was all about in the first place. In both songs this revelation is accompanied by ecstasy; the self-recognition that comes along with death is the answer to all questions, and as Darnielle sings is brighter than stars. That’s what I want death to be—a moment of diamond clear insight, one that reconciles me to the pain and confusion I’ve suffered all my life. If I can have that, then my tortured existence will have been justified. If not, fuck it already.
