Better Off That Way
Aug. 6th, 2014 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
howeverbriefI've been listening to Against Me!'s newest album, "Transgender Dysphoria Blues" quite a bit lately. As you might guess from the title, the album deals a lot with transgender issues, as the band's frontwoman, Laura Jane Grace (formerly Tom Gabel), came out as transgender a few years ago. I've written about her previously, probably because I relate to her themes of alienation, depression, awkwardness and loneliness on a certain level, but I also feel like there are parts of her music I will never understand. As a woman who is not overly feminine but has also never questioned her gender, I can't imagine what it's like to trans. I ask myself how she does it, what it would be like, and I just don't know.
I suppose it's selfish to ask those kinds of questions, as if that hypothetical would somehow make me seem more compassionate when it really just centers the discussion around me again. That's just a round-about way of being self-obsessed, and yet I've managed to do this repeatedly even as I've become more aware of it anyway.
But aside from that navel gazing, I wanted to post this song, probably because it sounds like a morbid love song at first.
"Two Coffins"
Two coffins for sleep
One for you, one for me
We'll get there eventually
In the dark of our graves our bodies will decay
I wish you'd never change
How lucky I ever was to see
The way that you smiled at me
Your little moon face shining bright at me
One day soon there'll be nothing left of you and me
Two coffins for sleep
Two coffins for sleep
All the things I have yet to lose will someday be gone too
Back into annihilation
All things will fade, maybe it's better off that way
I wish you'd stay with me
How lucky I ever was to see
The way that you smiled at me
Your little moon face shining bright at me
One day soon there'll be nothing left of you and me
Two coffins for sleep
Two coffins for sleep
-Against Me!
All that might be true. Two coffins could be for anyone, especially for you and a significant other because who wants to think about the impossible eternity of death and losing the partner you've agreed to share your life with. 'Til death being a pretty prominent part of the traditional vows and all.
Still, the word "little" being thrown into the mix makes me wonder if she's singing to her daughter, who would be about five now. (And looking up links in the course of writing this entry, I've confirmed this.) That interpretation of the song makes me more sad if it's true, like trying to explain this to a child makes it all the more tragic. At least your significant other understands death on the same level you do.
Given life lately, these lines has been kind of soothing: "All the things I have yet to lose will someday be gone too/Back into annihilation." It matters now, but it won't always. Regardless of what's remains, there's something to be said for the passage of time.
I suppose it's selfish to ask those kinds of questions, as if that hypothetical would somehow make me seem more compassionate when it really just centers the discussion around me again. That's just a round-about way of being self-obsessed, and yet I've managed to do this repeatedly even as I've become more aware of it anyway.
But aside from that navel gazing, I wanted to post this song, probably because it sounds like a morbid love song at first.
"Two Coffins"
Two coffins for sleep
One for you, one for me
We'll get there eventually
In the dark of our graves our bodies will decay
I wish you'd never change
How lucky I ever was to see
The way that you smiled at me
Your little moon face shining bright at me
One day soon there'll be nothing left of you and me
Two coffins for sleep
Two coffins for sleep
All the things I have yet to lose will someday be gone too
Back into annihilation
All things will fade, maybe it's better off that way
I wish you'd stay with me
How lucky I ever was to see
The way that you smiled at me
Your little moon face shining bright at me
One day soon there'll be nothing left of you and me
Two coffins for sleep
Two coffins for sleep
-Against Me!
All that might be true. Two coffins could be for anyone, especially for you and a significant other because who wants to think about the impossible eternity of death and losing the partner you've agreed to share your life with. 'Til death being a pretty prominent part of the traditional vows and all.
Still, the word "little" being thrown into the mix makes me wonder if she's singing to her daughter, who would be about five now. (And looking up links in the course of writing this entry, I've confirmed this.) That interpretation of the song makes me more sad if it's true, like trying to explain this to a child makes it all the more tragic. At least your significant other understands death on the same level you do.
Given life lately, these lines has been kind of soothing: "All the things I have yet to lose will someday be gone too/Back into annihilation." It matters now, but it won't always. Regardless of what's remains, there's something to be said for the passage of time.
