The Hubris of Modest Mouse

  • Nov 3, 2004
  • Series: Music
    The Hubris of Modest Mouse

    I recall listening to Modest Mouse five years ago when I lived in Seattle. A few of my friends were unofficial groupies, scouring the Seattle Weekly and The Stranger to find where they were playing that evening. The band was formed in 1993 in Issaquah, a suburb of Seattle, by guitarist Isaac Brock, drummer Jeremiah Green and bassist Eric Judy. Brock came up with the name "Modest Mouse" when he read a book in which the author described the working middle class as "modest, mouse-like people."

    With the release of their new album, Good News for People Who Love Bad News, Modest Mouse has achieved a new level of mainstream success. The album includes critical praise, for example, Rolling Stone (review) rated the album four out of four stars. The review commented on what sets the band apart, “They make a peculiar brand of existential folk poetry, one that combines singer-guitarist Isaac Brock's desperately uneasy vocals with off-kilter arrangements, creating something strangely catchy.” Even Mary-Kate and Ashley voted the album their ‘fave' in the hip picks section of their website.

    What struck me first from this album was the song, Float On . The song breathes a light floating, rhythmic background with moments of eerie psychedelic sounds that throw you off. This contrasting style sticks the song in your mind; it is like you are trying to unravel a puzzle that has no solution. Modest Mouse kept my attention as I listened to their philosophical ideas that they are preaching to the masses.

    Float On

    Bad news comes don't you worry even when it lands
    Good news will work its way to all them plans
    We both got fired on the exactly the same day
    Well we'll float on good news is on the way

    And we'll all float on ok

    The album title, Good News for People Who Love Bad News, corresponds with the songs aim to see positive in the world. The lyrics illustrate the good news in the bad news. For example, Isaac sings:

    I backed my car into a cop car the other day
    Well he just drove off sometimes life's ok

    I ran my mouth off a bit too much oh what can i say
    Well you just laughed it off it was all ok

    Well, a fake Jamaican took every last dime with a scam
    It was worth it just to learn from sleight-of-hand

    In the midst of life's pain, mishaps and suffering, we are told by Modest Mouse that we can float on. I have a hard time excepting this as good news. In a world of chaos, war, death, famine, murder, rape, abuse and genocide how can we just float on? Isaac Brock gives us some insight from an interview:

    Isaac_Brock.jpg

    The Onion: "Float On" almost seems like it was written as a challenge to yourself to write a more "up" song, both lyrically and musically.

    Isaac Brock: It was a completely conscious thing. I was just kind of fed up with how bad shit had been going, and how dark everything was, with bad news coming from everywhere. Our president is just a fucking daily dose of bad news! Then you've got the well-intentioned scientists telling us that everything is fucked. I just want to feel good for a day. I'd had some friends die, and with Jeremy kind of losing it... After we got out of that dark spot with everything melting down with the band, I just wanted to make a positive record. I think we managed to make a quarter of the record positive, and the rest is either kind of dark or more just relaxing into things being how they are, resigned. (The Onion April 7, 2004 Volume 40 Issue 14)

    Rather than stand up against what is bad and wrong, Brock writes a song to try to ‘feel good for a day'. Yet this manufactured feeling only occurs reciting a contradicting mantra. Is backing your car into a cop car a good thing? Or when you ‘run (your) mouth off a bit too much' at a friend? I know I wouldn't call it good to have ‘every last dime' stolen from me. Isaac Brock is being accurate to present meaninglessness in good news. He explores this lack of meaning more in another song:

    This Devil's Workday

    Gonna take this sack of puppies.
    Gonna set it out to freeze.
    Gonna climb around on all fours
    'til all the blood falls out my knees.

    All the people that you know.
    All the people that you know.
    All those people that you know
    floatin' in the river are logs.
    Well let's take this potted plant
    to the woods and set it free.
    I'm gonna tell the owners
    just how nice that was of me.

    I could buy myself a reason.
    I could sell myself a job.
    I could hang myself on treason.
    Oh I am my own damn god.
    HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA

    Isaac Brock sings his belief that there is no meaning to life. We are evolved from animals. Humans have come to exist through time and chance. He cannot claim any action is ‘good' or ‘bad' but only that we float through life accepting both as equals. This belief is reinforced with the song, Ocean Breathes Salty:

    Modest_Mouse-Good_News_for_People_Who_Love_Bad_News.jpg

    Ocean Breathes Salty

    when the ocean met the sky.
    You missed when time and life shook hands and said goodbye.
    When the earth folded on itself.
    And said "Good luck, for your sake I hope heaven and hell
    are really there, but I wouldn't hold my breath." You wasted life, why wouldn't

    you waste death? You wasted life, why wouldn't you waste death?

    The ocean breathes salty, won't you carry it in? In your head, in your mouth, in your soul.
    The more we move ahead the more we're stuck in rewind.
    Well I don't mind. I don't mind. How the hell could I mind?

    The more we move ahead the more we are stuck in rewind. Life is meaninglessness. This is the philosophy de jour. We have seen a wave of existential thought in pop culture this year. The last two movies I've watched, Garden State (read Kaleo's review) and I Heart Huckabees, were specifically designed to promote these existential ideals. The last music review, Bjork (read Kaleo's review), expressed similar views.

    These ideas sound very modern, but it's been around a long, long time. In fact, Paul said it was a philosophy that might make sense if there was no hope of a resurrection for us.

    "If the dead do not rise, 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!'" (I Cor. 15:32b).

    This is the hubris of Modest Mouse. They are assuming there is no heaven or hell. They are hoping that God has not created them and upon dying they will face judgment. Brock agrees with Apostle Paul's conclusion in a world without Jesus Christ's resurrection from the dead. Brock has a reputation of showing up to shows too drunk to sing. He writes in the song Bukowski:

    Bukowski

    If God controls the land and disease,
    keeps a watchful eye on me,
    If he's really so damn mighty,
    my problem is I can't see,

    Went to bed and didn't see
    why every day turns out to be
    a little bit more like Bukowski.

    Charles "Hank" Bukowski (1920-1994) is a poet, convinced, from the outset of the hopelessness of humanity and lasting friendship, he largely rejected the goals after which most strive. Instead, he found solace in alcohol. One critic described Bukowski's fiction as a "detailed depiction of a certain taboo male fantasy: the uninhibited bachelor, slobby, anti-social, and utterly free."

    If I were living with the worldview of Isaac Brock, I would pour another drink too. Actually, let's make it a double.

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