Music my Saviour; or An album that got me through a hard time
This is my entry into this month's Bear Blog Carnival, which I am hosting! Go check out the main post to read submissions from others.
When I had just turned 19, I moved to Tokyo to begin my year of study abroad. Not two months before then, I had just become a parent. My life was fundamentally changed in a way that I now realise I was not at all equipped to handle. In the midst of a long mental health crisis that had begun earlier that year, I had concluded that the best thing for my baby's future was to continue with University education in the hopes that it would lead to a better job, providing a better future. That decision to move to the other side of the planet before she was even two months old still sometimes haunts me.
I arrived in Tokyo jet-lagged but with a reasonable grasp on the language thanks to six years of study, first in high school, and then at University. I was proficient in reading and writing, but my ability to listen and produce the language verbally were lacking. I was not a secure speaker if I couldn't be sure of getting it exactly right; the exact worst conditions for trying to produce language. That first month in Japan was hard. Thrown into a totally foreign city with no existing connections, a strong mental block against producing Japanese, and a wildly fluctuating mental health situation, I struggled desperately to find my footing. I turned to cigarettes and alcohol. I didn't sleep. I had a hard time socialising and making friends. I rejected the University's suggestion of taking the most challenging Japanese classes available and opted for easier ones. I was drowning.
Then on the 27th of September, Machine Head released Unto the Locust to the world. I had been a fan of Machine Head's since I saw them supporting Metallica in Nottingham a couple of years prior. I got into trouble multiple times at school and in my part-time job for wearing earphones so I could listen to The Blackening on loop. It's still a favourite spin today, and I learned to play a bunch of the tracks as well. Anyway, I had pre-ordered the digital download (a weird decision, in hindsight), and it was ready and waiting on my iPod. I listened on my way to University that first day.
Each song felt specifically written for me and my mental state at the time. The spitting fury of I Am Hell, Locust, and Pearls Before the Swine; as well as the hopeful strength through adversity of Be Still And Know, This Is The End, Darkness Within, and Who We Are. Everything felt singularly calculated to offer me an outlet for the emotions I was refusing to honour. For months and years after, I would scrawl the lines "I Am Hell" onto books, tables, even my skin. I stopped just short of getting them tattooed, but it crossed my mind.
No change will be permanent
Our strength enduring bright incandescent
Take a chance before we fall
Pressed against the wallAnd the sun will rise
Dawn will break through blackest night
Distant in its glow
This shall pass, be still and know
Honestly, I've never been much of a lyric girlie, preferring melodies and instrument work over vocals. But every now and again a few lines sneak through and lodge up in my mind. The above run of eight lines from Be Still And Know is just such a set, and they felt like a true beacon in the dark. This too shall pass.
Darkness Within may be my favourite song on the album, though it's hard to choose. The broken man singing to his sons of his shame and his sorrow. How out of pain, scars, sins, misery, and inner darkness we can build things which are truly beautiful. This song encouraged me to throw myself into music, writing songs for my anguish, my fears, my shame, my hopes and dreams. And between those now lost songs, and the eight tracks that make up Machine Head's seventh album, I slowly crawled out of the darkest moment of my life and found the sun still shone. There's a very real chance that without this album I wouldn't still be here today. It means so much to me, and although it doesn't get a look in quite as much any more, I still hold onto that line from Darkness Within:
Music my saviour
Save me!
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