Hold Back the Day

When I listen to heavy metal, which is still pretty frequently, it isn't always easy to decipher the lyrics. "All they do is scream, how can you understand what they're saying?" I often hear. Well it's true. Without the lyrics printed in the inlay of the CDs back in the day, and now, without the internet, it was quite difficult to know, word for word, what some of your favorite songs are talking about. This isn't true across the board, but it helps me launch into today's topic.

So I was driving to work yesterday, listening to some of that aforementioned metal, and was jamming out to one of my favorite songs. Attempting to sing along, I realized I had very little assurance that what I was screaming was accurate to the original lyrics. I wanted to look them up so I could sing along with a little more confidence, but there was another reason, and a reason that can apply to all music. So often, we blindly sing along with songs without thinking about their meaning. Aside from surface-level pop songs where the meaning is about as subtle as the intent behind girls' Halloween costumes, there is probably a meaning to the songs we know and love that flies under the radar or over our heads. With the song I referenced, 'Hold Back the Day' by Devildriver, I wanted to read the lyrics so I could figure out what the hell the song was about. It kinda loses its luster if your favorite song is actually presenting the message of worldwide genocide or puppy slaughter. The music and the sound and the talent of a song is one thing, but if you're not on board with the intent behind the lyrics, it's hard to truly identify with it. I think this can accurately explain why I haven't left the world of heavy metal yet. The average person might _think_ metal is all about genocide and puppy killing, but more often than not, the song lyrics are so well written, so poetic, so deep, and with so much more social, political, romantic meaning than the pop music released these days.

Fast forward to me reading the lyrics to 'Hold Back the Day,' and trying to figure out the meaning. I took what I discovered and combined it with what I already had uncovered and tried to piece together meaning. It was during this process that I realized, 'it doesn't matter.' Sure, like I said, we all want to believe we're singing along to words that we could see ourselves writing. But the reality is: art, in all forms, is under the control of the audience.

So often we look at a painting or listen to a song or read a poem and think, 'what is the artist trying to say?' You see two red dots on a canvas of yellow and try to conjure up the thoughts of the person behind the paint brush. The artists is sitting behind the painting saying, 'can't you see it! It's the back of the school bus! It symbolizes the lack of detail we pay attention to the education system, even though it's right in front of our face!!' Really, Picasso? Unfortunately for you, the deeper meaning, the hidden tricks, the small details of your work, will most likely be lost on anyone who’s not an enthusiast of your work. Same goes for music. You could masterfully maneuver the strings of a guitar that no human has ever done before, but if the average listener just goes, 'huh, sounds cool,' in between bowl hits, well then all the talent in the world is lost. Writing: you could interweave and disguise hundreds of references, jokes, symmetries, quirks, nuances, or any other skillfully arranged piece, while at the end of the sonnet, the reader goes, 'so, Shakespeare was gay?'

I was a really bad English major a.) Because clearly I don't enjoy following the rules of grammar, and b.) There were times where I couldn't get away from thinking, 'maybe he just wrote it to write it.' You know, maybe there are not 10 different meanings to the poem. Maybe it wasn't a social game-changer. Maybe it didn't have political subplots and conspiracies. Maybe it was just one night that Whitman got a little drunk and thought it was funny. And all that thinking is obviously the lazy, easy-way out, not wanting to write a paper on it mentality.

But now I see, that's not the case. In the same way that we, the audience, might miss the intricacies of a piece of art, we can also over-analyze something that was never meant to be anything more than entertainment. The point being, the author doesn't get to choose. I have no idea how what I write impacts those who read it, the same way that musicians have no idea their audience will interpret the newest single. It's asinine to blame a band for a school shooting. The kid can say 'Marilyn Manson was the reason I did this' all he wants, but that's just because when he listened to the CD, that's what he got out of it. Sure, you probably won't have people bringing guns to school after hearing a Britney Spears song, unless they're scared of organized teenage dancing in school hallways, but the point is the same. When you create something, you don't have control of how people will interpret.

It's with that point that I bring this full circle. I looked up the lyrics to 'Hold Back the Day' hoping to find meaning that I could latch on to, when I already had something in my head that I liked:

'Miles to go and skies to fly, hold back the day,

Miles to go and skies to fly, it's darkest before the dawn.'

I created my own interpretation. Sorry, Dez (lead singer), but I'll take from it what I need.