Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Seed Discussion Forum
Teenage Wasteland
marcwordsmith:
One of the ways I comforted myself during and after the Seed was with music. I projected very personal meanings and messages into the rock music of the day. Like the song "From the Beginning" by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, with its refrain:
You see it's all clear
You were meant to be here
From the beginning
I took that to mean that, for reasons I could not fathom, even the Seed was somehow part of the master plan for my life. I needed to believe it made some sort of sense, fit into some larger scheme.
The album Who's Next was a really big deal for me; I escaped so much into that record. It's hard to say exactly what made it feel so relevant to me. Maybe just the whole tone of it, the spiritual yearning, the hurt.
And the "teenage wasteland" refrain made really feel not alone. When Townshend sang, "Don't cry, don't raise your eye, it's only teenage wasteland," I felt like he was telling me to forget it--teenagehood would be, for me, a scarred battlefield that I could leave behind some day for better places. (And maybe many troubled teenagers, in all kinds of situations, heard it that way, and maybe that's part of why that phrase resonated for so very many kids.)
Anybody else take comfort in music or song lyrics during the Seed era in their lives?
landyh:
--- Quote ---On 2005-12-03 18:10:00, marcwordsmith wrote:
"One of the ways I comforted myself during and after the Seed was with music. I projected very personal meanings and messages into the rock music of the day. Like the song "From the Beginning" by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, with its refrain:
You see it's all clear
You were meant to be here
From the beginning
I took that to mean that, for reasons I could not fathom, even the Seed was somehow part of the master plan for my life. I needed to believe it made some sort of sense, fit into some larger scheme.
The album Who's Next was a really big deal for me; I escaped so much into that record. It's hard to say exactly what made it feel so relevant to me. Maybe just the whole tone of it, the spiritual yearning, the hurt.
And the "teenage wasteland" refrain made really feel not alone. When Townshend sang, "Don't cry, don't raise your eye, it's only teenage wasteland," I felt like he was telling me to forget it--teenagehood would be, for me, a scarred battlefield that I could leave behind some day for better places. (And maybe many troubled teenagers, in all kinds of situations, heard it that way, and maybe that's part of why that phrase resonated for so very many kids.)
Anybody else take comfort in music or song lyrics during the Seed era in their lives?"
--- End quote ---
Marc, I don't think I got to thank you for your fearless chronicle of your experience at The Seed. But if I did Thanks again. I have always found solace in music but much more now than then. I occasionally quote something that I find meaningful from my library in here. Funny I loved rock all my teenage years and of course still do to some extent but I started branching out as i got a little older. After I went back to my dads after destroying my first marriage due to my alcoholism I found comfort in what would now be considered classic country. The songs were one after the other a serial compilation that spoke to the wreckage that I had created for myself. I would go park my car at the lake near my parents home and write sad poems, drink beer,listen to country music and cry. Later in better times I found the mood that jazz created after getting sober was useful in setting the tone for my new venture back into the dating world. But I steered toward artists from Michael Franks to Winton Marsalis to Rickie Lee Jones and though I typically get the most from lyrics I found the power of brass to move me emotionally as well. From there I ventured into the Nouveau Flamenco of Otmar Liebert which led me to search the roots of classical guitar and its heavier influences such as Andres Segovia. His renditions on guitar of Bach developed in me the interest to explore on a limited basis some classical music. Now I listen to people who by and large are are in the folk scene and obscure for the most part to the general public but who are highly respected by the more popular country musicians who often cover there songs. I find an amazing power and depth to the simple combination of an acoustic guitar and lyrics of life and love and stories of experience. So many may not have heard of people like John Prine, Doc watson, Townes Van Zandt, Lucy Kaplanski, David Wilcox, Ellis Paul, Greg Brown, Eva Cassidy, Lucinda Williams but their music forms the roots of so many others that are more popular but don't have any of the raw and passionate truth that resonates with these other artists. Many know Townes Van Zandt through the cover The Highwaymen did of the song "Pancho and Lefty". John Prines contributions are legendary in the music world but to understand the power of his music listen to his duet with Bonnie Rait singing "Angel from Montgomery" about an old couple sung from the womens's perspective. The lines in that song, "if dreams were lighting and thunder were desire this old house would of burnt down a long time ago", "Just give me one thing that I can hold onto, to believe in this living is just a hard way to go" " How the hell can a person go to work in the morning come home in the evening and have nothing to say", speak of such a deeply moving picture of despair. From Prine's most well known song "Sam Stone", about the life of a vietnam veteran after he returned home, the line "there's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes" is so simplistic yet poignant. Townes Van Zandt who's own path of abuse led to his death a few years ago had the ability to weave marvellous tapestries of words that are some of the most amazingly complex poetry I have ever heard anywhere. Yet there is a raw edge to his music that to me anyway is moving. So I tend to seek out the little known artists who have a story to tell.
cleveland:
Marc, I totally loved that lyric and couldn't get it out of my head sitting in the group. I tried not to think of it, but it did seem to justify why I was there.
OK, here's some more thoughts on music.
Pre-Seed, I loved Todd Rundgren, who expressed almost every feeling I had somewhere in a song:
"Sometimes I don't know what to feel..."
"Is that you, look who's on the skids this time, bitchin' 'bout her place in line, when all you really want is attention: but your like every other girl uptown, who wants to ride her face around..." (made me think of every girl I was obsessed with, teenage angst)
"Weren't you there when the carousel burnt down, the fire and confusion, the smoke and the sound..." (feeling of loss)
I also loved these 2 songs by Dan Fogelerg, who turned into a schlockmeister, but did write one great one:
"I have these moments all steady and strong, with feelings all holy and humble; the next thing I know I'm all worried and weak, I feel myself starting to crumble..."
Also: "Changing horses in the middle of a stream, makes you wet and sometimes cold...looking farther than you'll ever hope to see, makes you old, oh, makes you old..."
I also loved Patti Smith's Redondo Beach, which was about suicide: "Down by the ocean it was so dismal,
Women all standing with a shock on their faces.
Sad description, oh I was looking for you."
Also Barnstorm: Turn to Stone and Mama Says. What great songs! I really was suffering by not listening to my songs at the Seed.
Stripe - did you like Zappa's Billy the Mountain? One of the funniest, craziest albums of all time.
Art did get me to listen to Frank Sinatra. I still think he's great.
Landy, do you know of John Gorka? He writes fantastic lyrics...my wife and I saw him at a folk festival in Hocking Hills, OH - just him and a guitar, in an old log cabin with about 20 people. One of the best music experiences of my life.
GregFL:
Around two years after getting out of the seed, Styx came out with an album that had "fooling yourself" on it, and I totally identified it with me because I always believed I was "going places" in life, but after the seed I was just waffling and I had this anger that I was having trouble with.
lyrics.
You see the world through your cynical eyes
You're a troubled young man I can tell
You've got it all in the palm of your hand
But your hand's wet with sweat and your head needs a rest
And you're fooling yourself if you don't believe it
You're kidding yourself if you don't believe it
How can you be such an angry young man
When your future looks quite bright to me
How can there be such a sinister plan
That could hide such a lamb, such a caring young man
You're fooling yourself if you don't believe it
You're kidding yourself if you don't believe it
Get up, get back on your feet
You're the one they can't beat and you know it
Come on, let's see what you've got
Just take your best shot and don't blow it
You're fooling yourself if you don't believe it
You're killing yourself if you don't believe it
Get up, get back on your feet
You're the one they can't beat and you know it
Come on, let's see what you've got
Just take your best shot and don't blow it.
GregFL:
My goodness, immediately after posting that, I remembered the other Styx song from "the Grand Illusion" album that kept me listening over and over to that tape (8 track?). These songs sum up my post seed experience. Maybe this helps understand the state I was left in post seed graduation.
Man in the wildnerness....
Another year has passed me by
Still I look a myself and cry
What kind of man have I become?
All of the years I've spent in search of myself
And I'm still in the dark
'Cause I can't seem to find the light alone
Sometimes I feel like a man in the wilderness
I'm a lonely soldier off to war
Sent away to die - never quite knowing why
Sometimes it makes no sense at all
Ten Thousand people look my way
But they can't see the way that I feel
Nobody even cares to try
I spend my life and sell my soul on the road
And I'm still in the dark
'Cause I can't seem to find the light alone
Sometimes I feel like a man in the wilderness
I'm a lonely soldier lost at sea
Drifting with the tide
Never quite knowing why
Sometimes it makes no sense at all
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