History moans…
by Douglas Burk
I have noticed as I get older that our favorite records wind up becoming part of our personal heritage; they resonate so soundly with us and we connect so thoroughly with them that they wind up becoming a part of us, and we hear and “see” a bit of ourselves in them everytime we listen to them. For many of us, this happens in our teens, when we’re still discovering and fully crystallizing what winds up becoming our identity. If we’re lucky, we find one work that winds up latching onto the interior of our soul, that demonstrates time and again the old saying that, “good art grows with you”.
I probably have a good four or five records like that, but the first that ever had that impact on me was Bush’s second record, “Razorblade Suitcase”. This was the first record I ever anticipated prior to it’s release. This was the first time in my life that I consciously realized that I had a favorite band who’s future I was excited to follow.
I can remember the feedback amongst friends of mine who’d enjoyed the band up until that point: They’d told me that the first record was better, that “Swallowed” was the only good song on here. As a slight precursor to this, I can also recall Bush contributing a cover of Joy Division/New Order’s “In A Lonely Place”, for The Crow: City of Angels soundtrack, and I can also remember being the only person who loved it and thought it’s sparse atmospherics and reliance on the toms had an almost “tribal” feel to it. I think my reactions to “In A Lonely Place” and “Razorblade Suitcase” made me realize that I had a different approach to appreciating bands and the development of their career as compared to many people. I liked the idea of a band growing and changing somewhat, of not necessarily having to lean on the trappings of the bells and whistles of a studio in order to have a palatable product.
This record produced three singles in the US, but it wasn’t exactly the most “radio friendly” thing they ever did. In fact, it was practically a live record, performed as a full band, together, with vocal tracks re-recorded later to counter the amount of bleedthrough occurring from the instruments. It has few embellishments, having only 2 overdubs appear on the entire record. The production is raw, the textures and tones come through very naturally. And the thing I find most remarkable is that, to me, this record is a bit like an art gallery: Each song is sort of a painting that encapsulates a certain set of tones and feelings, and whenever I listen to it again, I feel as if I’ve been allowed back in for a special exhibition. The 13 songs are sequenced downright perfectly, the intro of each new song picking up perfectly where the last song left off.
Lyrically, you could say it was somewhat cryptic, but like any good writer, I think what Gavin Rossdale did here was draw on personal experiences and exorcise a few demons along the way, while still keeping the words abstract enough to be universally relatable to his audience. It’s written from an honest place, but it isn’t so literal or rigid that you can’t project a bit of your own life onto it. Instrumentally, the band is as at their downright tightest, the record perfectly capturing them at a performance peak in their career. The heavier, more urgent songs on this record sound like guerilla attacks carried out by four men on a fucking mission. The softer, more tender tunes tend to evoke feelings of a certain melancholy and yet simultaneously a certain repose, as if something’s fallen apart, and we’re only just now, after the dust has settled and events are over, hitting the brakes and looking back with a clearer sense of what occurred.
Overall, the title was said to be about all of the emotional baggage a person accumulates, especially in their twenties. It was meant to convey how we come into every new situation and relationship with a ton of an agenda because of the way the events of our past have shaped us. At 15 years old, I could not possibly grasp that with any great sense of depth and maturity, and was more or less drawn to the emotional and musical dynamics that I heard and felt in the record. 14 years later, I can definitely understand where Gavin Rossdale was coming from a little more clearly, because in the decade plus since the record came out, I have developed an awareness of the way we all tend, many times without consciously realizing it, to project the residue of our past onto our present and futures. I have grown in those 14 years, and as good art does, Razorblade Suitcase has grown with me…