1) MY IMMORTAL and GOOD ENOUGH by EVANESCENCE
They say to leave things to chance is a foolish, rather naive proposition. For a newly minted middle school boy ( I was 12, a year before my teenage marked its onset) naive and foolish are terms that often fit the picture. However back then, to my inquisitive self, chance encounters with the visual medium and audio representations were as precious as finding a golden carriage. Mtv was all the rage and played actual music then besides having a roster of credible video jockeys here. I am talking about the 2003-04 season. Suddenly, an advertisement for a compilation CD of latest songs was heard, flashed by in seconds but I was alert enough to catch the raging rock sounds and interesting layers of two songs : Somewhere I Belong by Linkin Park and Bring Me To Life by Evanescence. There has been no looking back, as that oft-repeated line goes. It was unlike anything ever before as we now know and at that betokened moment, their raw appeal was fresh and pulsating with youth. The hard rock sound wasn't just noise to me and I have to thank my family as it has made me grow up on a staple of rock greats and meaningful pop- in short effective music. So I was listening to Sultans of Swing and a Stairway to Heaven at 10 even though I couldn't have grasped their majestic essence then. The induction to the very essence of good taste, one that is distinguishable from obvious choices, was let loose and my father, who is a walking, talking cultural guru takes credit here. He inculcated the stories and lyrical meld behind these songs as lucidly as he could and there I was on a plane of self-discovery. But with this batch of breakout artists, my self-discovery fused with something era-defining.
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Evanescence is a part of that impressionable pantheon and not without reason. As a collective, it has unified classical instrumental prowess of violins, piano and other string ensembles with jagged, serrated edges of rock - two classic paradigms- and Amy Lee's vocals have been responsible for validating a new benchmark of playback singing for me. One that is adorned and embellished with rare feelings of pain, melancholy, longing and pangs of a tortured soul thriving in oblivion. It's a ghostly timbre appropriating our darkest psychological secrets and struggles. Also music should never be a literal translation of lyrics and these artists conflated different meanings with each expression. Evanescence is no exception in that regard.
My Immortal, one of their earliest releases, brought a sustained stillness to a tentative post 9/11 world and tender terms of mortality in its lyrics gave it an emotional fillip to imitate our growing tendency to fear for our lives. Sample the opening lines, "I'm so tired of being here/ suppressed by all of my childish fears/ if you had to leave, I wish that you would just leave/cause your presence still lingers here and it won't leave me alone."
Lee coos, creaks, whispers yet enunciates her words with utmost clarity in a weeping range of disintegration that has remained a standard untainted for its integrity. Evanescence relates to a cold state of living where life and death are not just two binaries but larger entities and the band incorporates the times we live in and its agonies well in this gem. There is a simmering plea for reuniting with a lost soul and in a larger framework it can be about reacquainting us with perhaps lost innocence, our own distinct personalities before a full fledged restoration gets underway ; a slow and steady progress indeed.
Looking back, we know we are still struggling to build a safer, better place of reckoning for each one of us. The gorgeous spell of the piano is a spare and lilting standard as the song is structured around only this one instrument, a forte really of this band, and fits perfectly with the ethos of crumbling regeneration. In my regard, sprinklers of rock set open vis a vis guitar riffs present in the video is another block to build its enigmatic sound. In both interpretations, My Immortal sinks to a deep riverbed of our souls to construct an inward and outward loop of silence needed to reflect on our place as individuals straight out of a Munch painting.
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A LETTERED SOUL: REFLECTIONS ON LITERATURE, CINEMA AND CULTURE .
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