Another Kind of Currency: Lyrical Dissonance as a Warning

Jonathan Skufca

Jukebox the Ghost 0710 7.jpgCourtesy of WKDU.

Jukebox The Ghost has the distinction of being the first DC-area band I was a fan of before knowing that I was going to college in the District, and are still one of my now-local favorites to this day (although they have close competition with Kill Lincoln for that spot). They also are one of the few examples of a rock trio that is missing one of the “standard‰” instruments: they lack a bassist. In honor of their fourth album, Jukebox the Ghost, being released on October 21, this week we‰’ll be looking at their first album, Let Live and Let Ghosts, and in particular the dissonance between the lyrics and the music of the suite that closes the record.

The suite is divided into three songs: “Fire in the Sky,‰” “Where Are All the Scientists Now?‰” and “A Matter of Time.‰” The first “movement,‰” as I‰’ll refer to them as throughout the column, serves as an exposition with basic sparse acoustic instrumentation that begins to spin the tale of a world, very similar to our own, with technological advancements allowing them to fly into space:

Launching themselves into space
They gazed at the wrinkles on God‰’s face
And He followed them down
He was surprised by what he found
Lights and towers that touched the sky
Submarines and machines that attempted to fly
He said, “You all look the same from far away
And I really hate to be this way
But I stick to what I say,
And something‰’s gonna have to change,
Today is Judgment Day.‰Û

(I just realized that out of the context of the rest of their work these lyrics make JtG seem like a Christian band. That couldn‰’t be further from the truth.)

And with that, “Where Are All the Scientists Now?‰” and the lyrical dissonance begins. If a song discusses the apocalypse or Judgment Day, we’ve been trained to expect certain musical ideas including haunting minor or diminished chords and morbid instrumentation including strings, organs, or heavily distorted guitars, depending on the type of Apocalypse story being told. Jukebox the Ghost, however, does something very differently. “Where Are All the Scientists Now?‰” contains these lyrics:

It starts with a flash and a blast
Plaster and glass as an Earthquake
Came flooding through my living room
The sky was black with thinking
As it began to sink, I thought of you.

Backed with joyous piano chords and guitar. The mood, while not entirely one of jubilation, is far from the “doom and gloom‰” expected with songs about the apocalypse. The chorus‰ÛÓor the closest thing the song has to one‰ÛÓhas both lyrical dissonance within itself and the background music:

It‰’s the End of the World, la da di da da da da da

And soon after, there begins an instrumental sequence that sounds a bit more as one would expect. It evokes feelings that shit is going down around these joyous proclamations of the apocalypse. Chromatic piano scales and crunchy electric bass (they do use some on their recordings, just not live) add to the foreboding aura this section puts out.

We are then taken to a section that doesn‰’t have much lyrical dissonance with no context. Both the lyrics and the background music seem to be jubilant, proclaiming happiness at surviving:

(We Survived!)
It lit up the inside of the Moon
(We Survived!)
To remind us that help would be arriving soon
(We Survived!)
Hanging tinsel in clear view
Erecting scaffolding, and Christmas lights
Dedicated and renovated for you

These lyrics are sung over joyous quarter-note pulse from the piano and sleigh bells, which only adds to the pleasant mood. However, what they survived was not something pleasant‰ÛÓit was the apocalypse!

World-After-the-Apocalypse-09.jpgCourtesy of ufunk.

And then we segue into the third movement, “A Matter of Time,‰” which retains the musical mood from the end of the second but has lyrics that take on a tone of warning. It begins to tell the tale of a new Earth:

You clap your hands and sighed
You were amazed that you survived
And the air that you were breathing
Gave you a supernatural feeling
And the sound of your heart beating in time
With the rhythm of your breathing
Mixed with the speed of the Earth spinning
Was precisely the same speed as earthquakes
Building beneath your feet
Awaking strangers that you need to see
The collision of a hurricane and a suicidal plane
Oh, God

It’s only a matter of time

The person in the narrative is, obviously, pleased to have survived the apocalypse, but remembers exactly what it was and immediately begins to prophesy and warn their fellow inhabitants of this New World that it will end sooner than they think:

Until, suddenly…

A voice will ring out from the clouds
Bursting out in song
Speakers pumping loud

Keep on crying just to stop the water rising
To your brain composed of dirt
You keep on pissing to keep on drinking
You keep on eating to keep on shitting
Time will wear you down

It’s only a matter of time
It‰’s only a matter of time

And the lines from the middle stanza (“Keep on crying‰Û_‰” and “You keep on‰Û_‰Û) continue to be sung throughout the rest of the movement until the movement, suite, and album close on the lyrics “It‰’s only a matter of time.‰Û

Here, Jukebox the Ghost are reminding us of our mortality as well as the mortality of our planet. It‰’s only a matter of time before it all comes to an end and we should relish every single moment that we have. However, numerous others have told us this message. What makes JtG any different? They don‰’t get preachy about it, nor do they make the music sound ominous for the most part. In making the background music sound pleasant, they draw listeners in, who come back for a repeat listening once they decide that they liked the music. As they listen repeatedly, they begin to hear the message that they band has intended for them to hear. And while the contrast of the apocalyptic lyrics with the jaunty music is part of JtG‰’s shtick, it serves its own purpose.