Song of the Day: "My Uncle’s Navy"

A column about music, and about how the music informs our lives. Today's author is Joe. See the previous songs HERE.

"My Uncle's Navy"

Neko Case

from Hell-On

2018

I am not a good man. I am not moral. I am flawed. I make mistakes. I take too strong of a stance on certain subjects, and am too ignorant of others. You shouldn't listen to me as I flail around on this blog looking for something to say. I turn too often to my emotions, which are vague, not very well thought out, and I use this blog as a crutch, as a way to work out those emotions in real time, which feels good in the moment but over time curdles into something ugly and old and outdated. So turn away. This is hypocrisy in action. But I'm writing it because that's what I do, for better or worse.

I have no reason to put the term "allegations" in the search bar, until I do. I've said this before too many times: I don't go sniffing around. It finds me. And once it does, there's literally nothing I can do but take a stand. It's how I've conditioned myself to behave. It's something I have trained myself to consider important. I'm talking about sexual abuse, of course. You know this. You could smell it in the air, that there is a path and that it is leading me here, yet again, through this blog post. How to grapple with the classic art vs. artist conundrum. You're getting defensive already, because that's what people do, and I've learned to accept that. It's easy to say you're against sexual abuse but it's hard to articulate how that opinion might and possibly should resonate through the act of creating and consuming and engaging with art. Most people don't want to bother. It hurts too much. I get it, I really do.

And it's so fucking easy, when it doesn't affect you. There are so many abusers whose art I would never have given a fuck about anyway, and it's so goddamn simple to say "fuck that dude" and brush it under the rug and forget it ever happened (the art, I mean). It's easy too when you get there early enough. Like say a revered Irish musician dies in a motorcycle accident and his music is once again passed around and his legend grows and those of us who didn't know him in life feel the pull toward the immortal art, to engage with it now that the body of work is set in stone, to reflect on what it means now that the artist is gone. Which is fucking powerful stuff, truly. Always is. Except for the little whisper you might hear too, from off in the corner, tiny voices mumbling about how it wasn't actually this way, the artist was actually not the type of person who you'd be inclined to revere under normal circumstances, and maybe there was a sinister strain of the legacy that will be hushed for as long as it takes the obituaries to unwind like royal carpets.

Here it is, in brief, the whole history of my path-crossing with an artist, contained in a single sentence: there were a few songs chosen for publication on the blog by various contributors, I was interested but not swayed enough to explore more, I was made aware of the Oscar win, and remembered that particular factoid, up until he died and a more than a few friends reached out and said I should listen, and I listened, and it was nice, there were a few powerful songs, I didn't quite get there but listened enough to appreciate the body of work and what it stood for, thanked friends for the recommendation, and then, a day or week or some time later, I read a blog post by Neko Case.

I don't need to explain how my mind works when it comes to this shit, because I've done that before. Too many times. Enough times, in fact, that the blog now has it's own "cancelled" tag (the term "cancelled" used slightly ironically, because I don't believe that "cancel culture" is real, which is also something I've explained too many times). I can never unlearn the fact that Glen Hansard at best was a sexual harasser and at worst a child molester. I don't need to explain why learning such a thing, and believing women when they make those claims of a person who isn't even around to defend himself anymore, is something that would irrevocably alter my ability to engage with this person's chosen art. I don't need to explain it because I already have.

What I do need to explain here—or maybe I don't, but at the very least I have the foolish urge at this juncture to attempt it anyway—is how this is all a personal decision, for me. I am not here to argue that you should not listen to Glen Hansard's music. I am not saying anything about your decision one way or the other, because that's your decision. I make a decision every single day regarding what music I listen to or don't listen to, and you do the same. Those are separate decisions. Just because I make a decision to not listen to a particular artist for a particular reason doesn't mean you are beholden to the same thought process. You can listen to whatever you want. What you listen to says nothing about you as an individual, and says nothing about your moral standing in this world. Unless it says everything. It does, and doesn't.

The second Neko Case blog post I read spoke more elegantly about the decisions that I make in this context than I could ever write about it. One, in that it really is as simple as believing women when they say they were abused. Two, in that it's perplexing to feel this one particular way about the art and the artist who made it and how feelings about the artist could irrevocably affect the art he made, and then be made to feel like you're wrong, that you're overreacting, that art and artist can be separated, that it's okay to dance to "Don’t Stop 'Til You Get Enough" at a wedding. As if it's totally okay to continue to pull positive emotions from the art of someone who put a lot of negative emotions into the world.

It is though, is the thing. It's okay to do that. There's a judgment on my part, but the judgment only exists in my inability to understand how other people operate. I feel so strongly about something, and I am genuinely perplexed when other people don't feel as strongly about it as I do. That inability on my part is probably my fatal flaw. I am continually caught off-guard when I am placed in the minority opinion. When I'm made to feel small when I refuse to listen to Arcade Fire, for example. It's assumed that it's just posturing on my part, that I'm relinquishing a previously cherished art because I'm trying to act all high and mighty or whatever. I'm not judging the act of listening to the work of abusive artists at all. I'm jealous, even, that one might have the capacity to operate that way, to listen to great art and manage to forget about all the cruelty that was ignored in order to make it. I can't do that.

So what I'm saying is that it didn't feel right to listen to the Frames or the Swell Season or any solo stuff from Hansard, at least not after reading what I read and putting some pieces together and believing at least one woman. But this blog post is arguing for grace for those who have been listening this whole time, and don't want to believe. I am here to tell you that I understand, and far be it from me (some asshole cishet straight white dude who's never met any struggle in his goddamn life) to act morally superior when it comes to what art you choose to engage with. I will defend your right to listen to Glen Hansard, and Arcade Fire, and Ariel Pink, and Kanye West, and Aerosmith, and Michael Jackson, and Hookworms, and Cheap Girls, and on and on and on and on, for as long as men are out there treating women and children poorly, and then going into the studio to create art that speaks to that experience of abuse or doesn't. I can't do it, but that's just me.

At the very same time, I acknowledge what flaws within me are not allowing me to listen to the art, and I need you to have grace for me, and understand that I'm coming from a place of empathy, empathy for victims who have spoke up and victims who need Neko Case to speak up for them and victims who were never given the chance to speak up. I know firsthand how hard it is to forgo art that means something to you, in order to stay true to this feeling within you, and how sometimes it's just easier to ignore that feeling, to just listen to the music. I want you to know that I understand you.

It's so hard because the act of not listening doesn't do shit. It accomplishes nothing. It effects no meaningful change whatsoever. It feels pointless. It's a gesture and it is meaningless. No one would have to know I don't plan on listening to Glen Hansard anymore (or starting to listen to Glen Hansard, as the case may be) if I wasn't writing about it. The writing about it might actually be detrimental, because now it feels like I'm needing to defend something, or I'm again posturing and HERE'S PROOF, or that I'm trying to send a signal out into the universe that I have the moral high ground because I'm taking some pithy stance about some bullshit that has nothing to do with me.

Isn't that all what Neko Case was talking about, though? In that second post, she was talking about how easy it is to get pulled into the abuser's world, because that's what they do. It's so easy to defend an abuser, because in order to be an abuser, you need to have the ability to manipulate other people. You could, say, groom a teenager and marry them and create a song that is so meaningful to so many people together, and win an Oscar together, all proof that this is worthy art, that it has made a positive impact on the world. And what, now some dipshit fucking blogger is trying to take that away from us?!

Glen Hansard was a good man! Glen Hansard created great art! Glen Hansard's art is so fucking important to me. Glen Hansard was beloved. Glen Hansard worked tireless to improve the lives of so many. Glen Hansard was a champion of the people of Ireland! Glen Hansard made tangible efforts in attacking the problem of homelessness! Glen Hansard's admirers, especially in his death, prove that he lived a good life and that he was a good person!

Some of that is undoubtedly true. Maybe even all of it. But I can't hear any of that in his music anymore. I just hear the abuse. Same as it always goes.

And now we've reached the point where I feel like I'm talking in circles, because I am. It feels that way because I'm trying to say two things at once, and they are both true, and they are opposed. I'm saying that it's not okay to listen to Glen Hansard, and I'm saying that the idea of not listening to Glen Hansard is an intensely personal choice and that I completely understand why you would still listen to Glen Hansard. I'm saying that we each need to make that choice for ourselves, and I'm asking that you defend my decision the same way I defend yours.

I think I also need you to understand my decision, as pathetic as that is. The "need" to "understand" is a pox that I have been trying to unburden people of recently. I think I've framed this blog as a vehicle to force people to understand who I am, and I think that this vehicle's failure has been the source of a lot of my anguish in recent years, and I am recently starting to move away from that, starting to believe that in letting go of this need, I will find true happiness. You cannot and should not understand me, and I cannot and should not expect anyone to. I alone know who I am, and that is okay. But still... while we're here... can't hurt for you hear what I have to say... even if you don't want to understand...

If there's a core principle in my explanation, then I'd say that I support the underdog. And let's apply "underdog" to victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence and child abuse. And let's then say that I am particularly drawn to supporting victims of those types of abuse. And let's acknowledge that that type of abuse is shockingly common. And let's say that there are tangible ways to support those victims. And let's say that I try to cover the narrow scope of that support in how I operate in my life. And let's say that one of the easiest and one of the hardest things that I do to show my support is my choosing the art I engage with purposefully and with intent. It doesn't do anything except that it shows intent. I choose to believe Neko Case and I choose to believe nameless Irish teenage women. I signal that choice to myself and (unfortunately for you) other people by not listening to a particular artist. That's my choice. That's my attempt at balance in this fucked-up world.

And I'm asking, just this once, for you to understand where I'm coming from. It would be so easy for you to get defensive about it, especially in this case. It would be so easy for you to say that I don't know what I'm talking about, that I'm not an Irish teenage woman and couldn't possibly know and shouldn't speak for them, that Neko Case had a personal ax to grind and is blowing things way out of proportion, that I'm speaking ill of the dead, that I'm making you feel bad by talking about an artist who has been so integral to your understanding of the world, that I'm just talking shit, that I'm forgetting about all the great things that Glen Hansard did, that I'm unfairly discounting all the very true and tangible ways that Glen Hansard made this world a better place to live in.

It would also be so easy for you to turn it back on me, to say that I have no right to be making this pointless decision, and by being high and mighty about this particular thing, I'm exposing myself as a hypocrite. That sometimes I feel my toes tapping to a Michael Jackson song, that sometimes I sincerely miss the days when I could watch and laugh at R. Kelly's "Trapped in a Closet," that I regret all the beautiful art that I gave up and it feels like a hole in my heart sometimes and then I type a sentence like this and feel selfish for expressing that thought and pathetic because what the fuck am I even doing. I feel like an asshole for having people watch Dogville and not really talking about the fact that the director and creator was an abuser until it was too late. I ate a whole goddamn pint of The Tonight Dough ice cream last night, knowing full well that the container of that ice cream pint featured the face of a sex trafficker who got away with his crime, and here I am knowing this and having written about it and hating this man and posturing that I take a stand against that sort of thing and yet eating his ice cream, and enjoying it.

There's no winner here. I don't feel like a winner for typing any of this. You don't feel like a winner by reading it. The countless victims of abuse are certainly not winners in any sense, because the abuse happened and the abusers get away with it, constantly. Maybe the abusers are the winners here, getting to see their legacy cemented while they treat people poorly behind closed doors with no consequences and then ride their motorcycles off to that great homeless charity gig in the sky. Let the rest of us losers toil away over what it all means, and what we could possibly do about it.

I don't have any answers for you, but I know I need to keep writing about it, and I'm asking you to just have patience with me, and a little understanding, for what I'm telling you needs to be done. But also that I hold patience and understand for you, and that I support you if you disagree.