Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 79: Joe

Prompt: "A song about a divorce"

Selected by Joe

"The Past Is a Grotesque Animal"

Of Montreal

Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, 2007

I guess it's a good sign that I can't imagine ever getting divorced or any of my friends getting divorced. I was originally only going to include the first part of that sentence but tacked on the second part at the last second because I didn't want this to turn into a "wow isn't my life fucking CHARMED" bullshit. It's not just a me thing. I don't even think it's a people-I-associate-with thing. It's more, like, a generational thing. When I was growing up, there was a national concern about rising divorce rates but I'm told that those rates are steadily going down. I think maybe it's just as simple as people not wanting to get married unless they know the relationship is rock-solid and has no change of dissolving. Not saying that that could never happen, but generally, seems kinda crazy to go through the whole ordeal if you aren't 100% sure that this is doable forever. The thing that saves you 999 times out of 1000 is good communication. Go ahead and scroll through the (probably mostly made-up, I don't fucking know) stories on those subreddits that ask relationship advice or inquire about Who Is the Asshole, and most of the problems are the result of the partners not communicating like adults. I have plenty of problems with Pam and she has plenty of problems with me. Just today (the day I'm writing this, not the day that it's being published, and it's a busy couple weeks so we're talking like ten days ago), we got into a bit of a tiff, not really worth getting into details, mostly that I seem unable to get excited about changes around the house or household chores or whatever, and that I'd be content for our house to "stagnate" (neither of us used that word but that's basically the idea) if it meant just chilling during my days off from my soul-crushing job, whereas she's go go go and literally rearranged the bedroom in the middle of our fight. The blog got brought up, as if me asking her to write a fucking Radiohead review is comparable to having to replace the goddamn wood slats in our living room floor because she just couldn't help herself in pulling them up because of a tiny scratch. But, like....... I'm typing all this after the fact, we're good, communication worked as it should. My course of action was to put on sunscreen and my kneepads and go do yardwork for five hours. It was a true win-win, since I got out of the house and cooled down (figuratively, since I was still hot in a literal sense) and listened to the new Good Looks and the new Perennial et al., and meanwhile I'm proving to her that I can "take initiative" and do shit around the house that's actually beneficial to us. And when I came back in and showered, we had a good talk, all was well, I made sure that she knew she never had to participate in my hobby, I made sure she knew that I was going to be here for her when she needed help, and she said that she understood that I viewed housework as functional and not emotional, and that she would be more patient with that, and so on and so on, you get it. What the hell would cause this relationship to devolve into divorce? I really don't know. Here's a phrase: "irreconcilable differences." That's what divorce is. And what could be irreconcilable when you are comfortable with communicating? I don't know. There's shit that I would never put up with, and stuff that she would never put up with... but those concerns are discussed way prior to the fucking marriage. I wish we didn't have to get a cat. I think it's an added stress, and also I'm allergic. But my dislike of pets wasn't like this prior to marriage. It's evolved, and gotten stronger, and it's not fair for me to say "well now I don't like pets so we can't get one." I communicated my discomfort at the idea, but she communicated the fact that this was pretty important to her, so we compromised. I know it doesn't seem like a compromise, just straight-up getting a cat, but note that I don't really have anything to do with taking care of it, and note that Pam's promised to stick up for me when people (family members) make fun of me for getting a cat after I've been so vocal as of late about disliking pets, and note that Pam is going to remember this and be more understanding the next time I'd like to make a similarly-sized life change and she has her own discomfort about it. Back to my original sentence—I look around at the people in my life and see similar relationships. I'm not talking about social media, which is fake. I'm talking about my interactions with people. I have a sixth sense about this kind of thing. I also think maybe I'm still friends with the people I'm friends with because they have similar communication styles, and that those same communication styles strengthen both friendships and romantic relationships? I had this discussion with a couple of happily (I assume) married dudes the other night: who do we know our age who is divorced? Basically no one. I have a couple acquaintances maybe, and really the only person who I saw up close fall in love and then out of love was also being pretty terribly abused by that partner, so the divorce is more of a symptom of something completely different than what I'm trying to talk about here. I guess in general I'm trying to say that there is a difference between having a fight with your wife and complaining about it to others, and having a fight with your wife and figuring it out together. You bring your problems to others because you don't know how to fix it and there's no one in your house to talk to about it. You have problems in a good relationship and you're able to work it out, eventually, with the person you're fighting with, through direct communication. The middle section in today's eleven-minute song is shocking in this way, how the couple can't figure it out and end up destroying their entire house instead of working it out in a rational way through safe communication. I'm definitely not perfect but it's been easier with Pam than it has been with other women, and it's been easier with Pam in 2024 than it was with Pam in 2012, and all that together says that I've grown and she's grown and we've grown together. What did Reba Hart say? "People change, they grow... but if one person grows, and the other doesn't grow with them, then that's how you sprout a Barbara Jean." (It's been a hot minute, I don't remember the exact line of dialogue anymore.) And there definitely seems to be an emphasis on these... I don't want to say "values," because you can value something and not practice it... well then I guess "practices," an emphasis on these practices as our generation grows up and gets married. I've had a bunch of peers hit couples therapy, and those are the relationships that are steadier than ever, because they are practicing their communication, and it's fucking working, man. Nothing better than going through some disagreement and coming out the other side a better couple. Why wouldn't you want that? Why wouldn't you try everything you could to get that, even in the worst nadir of your lives together? And why wouldn't you do your damnedest to lay that foundation of communication toward the beginning, before getting married? These are all rhetorical questions. I know not everyone thinks about it before tying the knot. I've done more work on my relationship after marriage than before by a long shot. But it just seems to me like more and more people are thinking about those questions these days, which means it's harder to shack up but harder for that shack to fall down around you too. I don't know. I have a lot of time to think about these things during the eleven-minute Of Montreal odyssey that this song brings you on. This song is a sort of transformation from the baroque synth pop of the first half of the album into the darker, harsher, noisier disco-through-a-black-mirror of the second half. Also, I've been told and don't really care all that much about, that it's a transition from Kevin Barnes (frontperson / occasionally only person of Of Montreal; not Kevin Shields) into Georgie Fruit (Barnes' alter ego whose given description has not aged very well, but Barnes has taken to saying that it is "problematic on purpose"; okay). And so I guess I take this as a sort of implied divorce, in that, well, Barnes is going through something, clearly, and but also their partner doesn't seem all that interested in going along for the ride, isn't open to communicating about it, neither of them can talk about this, and then the ellipses at the end of the song clearly indicates that the divorce is all but finalized. It doesn't really matter how much of this is autobiographical and how much is fictional. Barnes' personal business is their own. But I like thinking about this idea of metamorphosis while adjacent to someone who isn't changing. You could probably even apply, in a meta sort of way, the relationship between Of Montreal and their fans. I don't speak for anyone but myself, but I can say that I've irreversibly fallen off the wagon when it comes to Of Montreal. There is a whole lot of good stuff in the early years, then this album, then maybe one bearable album in the subsequent ELEVEN albums. Barnes has grown, I have not. We weren't able to communicate. I read an interview recently with Barnes, and they were like "Hey, I'm just following my artistic bliss, and I'm glad when people follow and comfortable when they don't." My pessimistic side says that this is a shit excuse for making shit music, but my optimistic and romantic side says that their outlook is fucking brave, and true to theirself, and really fucking admirable. But I wonder at what point following one's bliss becomes selfish. Barnes doesn't owe me anything, so maybe this doesn't apply to the artist-fan relationship. But maybe there are scenarios in which finding your happiness means making the other person in your relationship unhappy, and vice versa. Which becomes an issue, sure, but it's still an issue that can be voiced and discussed, still something that can be solved via communication and understanding. I'm typing this as I listen to two little shits fight tooth and nail against Pam during bedtime, and I'm thinking about how maybe this is why kids can be so difficult—because they themselves are figuring out how to communicate, and you've entered into a relationship in which only one party knows how to do so rationally and appropriately, but you as the parent can't let it get to you and you gotta keep your cool because that's the only way the little brats learn how to communicate, through mimicry at first and then eventual understanding, and they can't learn that if you're going off the deep end every time they strip off their pajamas in protest of an already extremely reasonable summertime bedtime hour (Pam's doing a great job, for what it's worth, but maybe we'll put on the air conditioner when it's my turn tomorrow). This isn't a relationship counseling session or anything, by the way. Not preaching like I know the way, I'm just trying to document what I've learned and what I try and often fail to do but still try each day. This whole big blocky paragraph is more of a writing exercise than anything else—type what you know as fast as you can and see what comes up. I guess it makes sense that this is what appears when the subject of "divorce" comes up, since the subject scares the shit out of me, in the same way that maybe snakes scare me, in that I don't fear that a snake is going to appear here in this place at this time, but if it ever did, I'd recoil in horror, as if I did something wrong to deserve it, as if I've fucked up in some way, by letting that rattlesnake into the home, that I should've done better to prevent it, and now that it's here, it's scary, oh momma it's scary. Good song, though, if you're the type of person who would never read this but would still click the song. Maybe you're bad at communicating with me, Joe, in that case, since this is my chosen medium, but it's all good, I'm totally cool with sacrificing that if you choose to instead communicate with Of Montreal and hear what they have to say in this, their most infamous song. Enjoy.