I Bruise Easily: Episode 5

r u ok, hun?

Erase: GOON — Hour of Green Evening (and a bunch of others)

At the best of times, GOON’s Hour of Green Evening is a tough listen: moaning, spectral vocals weave through dark and cloudy baroque-pop arrangements and major key moments are scarce. When it soundtracks the dissolution of your relationship with your best friend in the world, it becomes an impossible listen. 

I’m calling my ex Emily after the GOON song “Emily Says.” For the final few months of our relationship, Hour of Green Evening was Emily’s go-to album. She wanted to hear it as often as possible. In the car. Cooking dinner. Playing Scrabble. Truthfully, it isn’t quite my thing, which of course I never admitted because I loved her sharing music with me, and somehow I didn’t think it was okay to say I disliked something. After work, she would burst through the door, immediately queue up a new song she’d discovered on her commute, and smile expectantly as the ‘music reviewer’ formed his opinion (“yeah, this is cool”). We found Bull this way, and Bonny Light Horseman; Pretty Sick and Team Picture; Illuminati Hotties and Ovlov—the bands behind some of my favourite albums from the past few years. 

I never knew what, exactly, attracted Emily to an album. The styles and moods seemed to vary wildly, and often I’d return a music recommendation to no avail. Surely she’d like Camp Cope and fanclubwallet, Dummy or Horsegirl? How can I not have known what music my girlfriend liked?

The last week of our relationship was spent in an Airbnb in rural wales. I’m still trying to make sense of that week. It was a last-ditch, make-or-break attempt to make things work. Time away from jobs and other external stressors would allow us to go on walks around lakes and through forests, drink warm ale in country pubs, cuddle on the sofa with our beloved dog, and talk about what we’d like out of our relationship and our lives going forward. The week dramatically fluctuated between business as usual and high-octane arguing, with beautiful, intimate moments that I wish I could cherish, but also the most upsetting moments of my life (so far). 

GOON’s album is imprinted on that trip, the backdrop more than the soundtrack. I kept playing it. In the car. Cooking dinner. Playing Scrabble. I think on some level I knew that when we drove home on that final green evening the family we’d tried to build would be dissolving. Selfishly, I didn’t want to sacrifice any of my favourite albums for that cause. But why was it acceptable for Emily’s favourite album to be ruined—or at least tainted—forevermore? I put myself first, and in return, she thanked me for putting on her music…. If I really was looking out for her, I’d have put on The Hold Steady or, god forbid, Mitski (her Room 101 bands). It makes me sad that I didn’t put her first, even with something so trivial. She deserves to be put first. She deserves to feel happy and loved and enjoy her gloomy-ass music in peace. Why couldn’t I give her that?

Maybe it’s fair that I erase some of my actual favourite albums. Such as Plumtree’s Predicts the Future, which we lauded for its involvement with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World—our couples’ Halloween costume (the Ramona Flowers wig came out a few other times)—but became one of our favourites in its own right; its warm, overdriven guitars and riot grrrl-lite vibe are perfect for every mood. Such as Belle & Sebastian’s If You’re Feeling Sinister, whose songs I once serenaded Emily with, whose cover art graces the wall of our flat in a giant frame, whose cosy folk-pop scored the drive home with our new puppy. And such as Elliot Smith’s Either/Or, which Emily showed me years before we got together while we stood in the street in the middle of the night outside a cinema in Oxford, one earphone each, unspoken feelings dancing between us. 

I’m not sure how much more I have to say with I Bruise Easily. It was a cool, cathartic concept, but I’m sick of writing about my breakup, and sick of writing in general. I’m kinda sick of music, honestly. (Off Menu all the way.) Because you can’t just erase albums and choose new favourites. I tried, I really fucking tried, but some songs will always be special, and just because you stop listening to them, they’ll never be erased. They’ll corner you in a pub or you’ll hear a sentence on TV that sparks the memory of a lyric and the rest of the song will follow you throughout the day, and you won’t be able to quiet it unless you blast La Luz at an ear-bleeding volume. Certain music takes root within you in a way that nothing else can. God dammit, music. I hate you sometimes. 

Enter: You Blew It! — Keep Doing What You’re Doing

But then I found refuge in a mathy, punky emo album that I admired as a teen by a band named after a quote from an Adam Sandler movie—something that wasn’t on my Feb ‘23 bingo card. 

I wrote the above GOON section weeks ago and have languished in a pretty bad state ever since. I haven’t been able to finish this episode or much of anything. Nor has the right album come along (though Reverse Death, Wednesday, and Grass Widow came close). To be honest, I lost faith in the process and my writing abilities. Then a couple things happened. 

First, I received an email from someone whose writing I very much admire. This person praised my vulnerability and grace and noted how hard it is to write something like this in the right way. It made me want to give it another shot, even if this is the last one I do, even if just for them (thanks for being my hero, just for one day… that’s an inside reference). 

Second, I realised that, actually, after spending the past week convinced that I am an insane person who needs psychiatric help, I just need to keep doing what I’m doing. A development in the breakup prompted me to take my guitar into the garden and smash the shit out of it; then, a few days later, while walking home alone from a bar, I decided I didn’t need my keys, so I threw them away, then sensibly turned around to retrieve them, but in the process of being thrown, the novelty Homer Simpson keyring my ex bought me had broken; after a futile search for Homer’s head, I sat on the pavement crying for an hour before falling into a brief drunken sleep. I came to my senses and made it home after not very long, but still, over the following days, for the first time in my life, I felt incapable of dealing with my emotions and my situation. I doubted whether I would bounce back from this. I still have doubts. 

However—and I guess this is a plug for therapy—I’ve been seeing a counsellor, who has helped me to realise that I am not, actually, insane. I am having emotional reactions, something I haven’t done much of in the past, besides simmering, passive-aggressive jabs at loved ones, so it’s all coming out now. And I am dealing with this, as much as it may feel, or seem to others, like I am not. I’m telling people. I’m asking for help.

I have things to be happy about and grateful for, too: I’ve decided I’m not giving up my dog (getting her is one of the best things I’ve ever done with my life); I’m seeing more of my friends, and they check in, unprompted; and I’m going on a trip to Chicago next month, my favourite city on earth, where I’ll sink craft beers and guzzle beef sandwiches and watch improv comedy and take another selfie with the bean, like this one circa 2017, and ride the elevated train past smokestacks and skyscrapers and foursquares and walk around a bunch and probably cry a bunch too. And I want to acknowledge how privileged I am to be able to devote such time and energy and—in the case of the beef sandwiches etc.—money to my mental health in this way. It’s not fair, I know, and I can only vow to pay it all forward.

At this post-therapy watershed moment, the song I wanted to hear—a song I haven’t heard in years and years and have no idea why it came to mind—was “You & Me & Me” by You Blew It!, a Floridian band that called it quits in 2018, but not before releasing an EP of Weezer covers titled You Blue It. Genius. (Their guitarist Andrew Anaya now plays in Pool Kids.)

I kind of hate midwest emo, or maybe what midwest emo has come to denote—this TikTokified meme where kool kids play insipid squiggly riffs over scenes from movies or else boring fucking lyrics. Of course, I’ll give the house album a spin on a wistful September evening, and when it’s done right, the genre boasts a stirring mix of ingredients. I think the key thing to get right is the vocal and the lyrics. You Blew It! keep everything in perfect balance, and Keep Doing What You’re Doing is certainly one of the happier and more sonically sophisticated entries in the genre. Frontman Tanner Jones tips platitudes upside down and comments on relationships and mental health with tongue-in-cheek detachment while remaining just sincere enough. “For every good thing I could say about you/ There’s a great reason why I refuse to,” he wails on “Regional Dialect.” That bitchy attitude makes me feel OK. (Take care of me, Tanner.) Also, when I was 18 I ran an Instagram account dedicated to showcasing pictures of ‘famous’ guitarists’ pedalboards. LOL. We featured his, and he commented and followed us and all that validating stuff… so we’re basically best friends. 

On this particular song, Tanner wonders, “Maybe I’m looking/ For someone to place the blame on/ Maybe, I shouldn’t be/ So wrapped up in your course of action/ I’m definitely playing detective.” This feels applicable to my situation. I’m still obsessed with what my ex is doing. I get panicky every time I think about her. I have R-rated nightmares every night. I worry I can’t be alone, that I can’t exist without her. (I’m pulling in $$$ at breakup cliche bingo.) But I’m gradually accepting that in order to move forward I need to not give a single fuck about what she’s doing (besides the cursory hope that she is happy and safe). I can’t determine my happiness based on whether she’s replied to my needy ‘i miss u why dont u care about me after everything weve been thru fine FU i dont need you im sorry im just upset pls reply u were my whole world’ texts. I can’t wonder what she’s doing or who she’s… with. I’m not a detective. I’m blaming her for how much I’m struggling. But this is no longer about her. This is about, ahem, Me & Me & Me. 

After a screechy, stunted build-up, “You & Me & Me” releases into an epic, lustral bridge section—four massive open chords that follow a 5/4 rhythm, which—sorry to mansplain—is a very uncommon meter in pop music and gives a jolting, awkward feel, but juxtaposed with the lightness of the diatonic major key harmony it’s fucking euphoric. I used to be obsessed with this section of the song; I’d listen on repeat while walking home from the clothing store where I worked as the part-time Suit Specialist at age 17 despite not owning a suit, which tells you a lot about my employer. Having not heard “You & Me & Me” for years, listening last night elicited such strong feelings of happiness and excitement that I started running on my way home from therapy. 17 again. Or maybe some things just hold up. It’s the best I’ve felt in weeks. And I owe it to midwest-goddamn-emo?!

The rest of the album is just as fantastic as the run-home-happy song. The excellently titled “Award of the Year Award” (if you know, you know) pits rubbery bass and rollicking guitar lines against Tanner’s strained croon, and the poignant, Transit-esque finale, “Better to Best,” delivers your fix of choral gang vocals. “Maybe things aren’t quite as bad as I let myself believe” goes the generous conclusion to the album, one I’m working on internalising. I recommend you listen, and maybe we’ll petition the band to reunite. Or maybe we’ll let them keep doing what they’re doing, and maybe we’ll do the same. 

Find I Bruise Easily on Spotify.