Cursive - Butcher the Song
With this song I figured out how to add a handy-dandy YouTube link. It's for all you lazy fuckers out there.
This song is the sixth track off their 2003 album, The Ugly Organ. I knew when I was finished posting the previous song, the next would be by Cursive. Picking which song however was a bitch. They have many that I am in love with, so it was a challenge to say the least. I picked this beauty because this is the most recent Cursive song I have and also I have been completely obsessed with it. To simply lay it out, I love this song. It screams utter perfection to me and I'm so thrilled to share this song with others. Hell, I'm thrilled to share this band, as I do not think many people know or have even heard a song from Cursive - that my friends is, a crying shame. This song differs greatly from the previous one (Weezer - Where's My Sex?) in almost every way. This is when shit starts to get serious kiddies. Buckle up and hang on.
Moving on from that long (and probably overdone) intro, I'd like to change it up and just post all the lyrics right here and now for your viewing pleasure (I suggest listening to the song while reading the lyrics). Anyways, enjoy.
There's a time and a place,
This is neither the time nor place.
Where do I fit in,
In this jigsaw of a relationship?
Why should I play the fall guy to your love?
I keep getting snubbed,
What dumb luck, what dumb luck.
So rub it in with your dumb lyrics.
Yeah, that's the time and place,
To wring out your bullshit.
And each album I get shit on a little more.
"Who's Tim's latest whore?"
Now, that's not fair -
No, that's just obscene.
I'll stop speaking for you,
If you stop speaking for me.
I'm writing songs to entertain,
But these people they just,
They, they just want pain.
They wanna hear my deepest sins,
The songs from the ugly organ.
And what comes out is a horrible mess.
Songs I can't forget, what's been said,
And this guilt I can't shed.
It still rings in my ears -
Oh get out the butcher's knife.
I've been screaming for years,
But it gets me nowhere.
Just get out the butcher's knife.
Will you get out the butcher's knife?
Get out the butcher's knife, oh.
That organ's playing my song,
But the song's gone on too long.
What a day to sever such ugly extremities.
"What a lovely day," says the butcher as he raises his arm.
"And I am what is left: a puppet. Laughing at the look of amazement on the musician's face, Pinocchio dove off the cliff and swam away..."
Bam. Boom. Still with me? I hope you heeded my advice and listened to the song while reading the lyrics. If you were a rebel and went against my wishes, that's cool too, do as you please. Any-who, let's finally dive into this little number shall we? As mentioned previously when I did the Weezer song I mentioned that my initial reaction to a song is key. When listening to new songs I give the beginning roughly fifteen seconds, then I jump to the middle and play roughly another fifteen, then finally I hop my way close to the end and end with a final (you guessed it) fifteen. Now at any of the first two checkpoints I like to call them, if they fail at keeping me interested I'm done with the song. Beep. Static. Over. That's all it takes. I'm a quick judge of character when it comes to songs, I know what my ears enjoy hearing. This song passed all the checkpoints with flying colors (well duh, or I wouldn't be mentioning this song).
I don't even know where to start with this song. I guess how about the album itself briefly? The Ugly Organ is in fact a concept album, which Cursive is no stranger to. Their previous album was a concept as well, called Domestica. Focusing on The Ugly Organ's concept (which is set up to be a musical play, the booklet even has stage directions), in a nutshell it is about some ugly organist's life which is filled with the many relationships one can have, loneliness, meaningless sex, some love, and a lot of depression. How splendid right? Have no fear though all these struggles does not make the organist lose all hope, in the final track of the album "Staying Alive", the organist is doing just that - staying alive (another great, emotional, powerful song worth a listen to). The name of the album itself has a lot of meaning too. People can take it two ways (or more, these are only the main ones), one being it is referring to an actual organ of a human. Most people jump right to making it sexual, his penis or some girl's vagina. Some people agree it's sexual, but not that literal. Some say it's referring to his heart, which to some, is the most sexual organ there is. On the other hand some see it as meaning the instrument, a literal organ you can play. When I first heard the name of the album I immediately thought this, especially that the cover is a painting (I'm guessing it's a painting) of keys that could belong on an organ. I now focus more on the idea about it referring to Tim Kasher's (vocalist) heart. Whatever way you see, it I just thought it's interesting that it has a double meaning. It's interesting keeping this in mind while listening to the album.
Holy fucking shit. I'm excellent at digressing aren't I? I was supposed to talk about the song awhile ago, whoops. Okay, so the song to me overall is about this guy (let's call him Tim because it is mentioned in the song and I think it's clear Tim is referring to himself in this song) who feels completely out of place with people. He's the black sheep. This causes him to suck ass in relationships. With this feeling of hopelessness, pain also accompanies it. To look at the song more closely, I feel so much pain from Tim. I think Tim ends up feeling the need to write such strong, personal, songs not just for himself, but he feels that's the only thing the fans want. Which I'd have to agree with Tim, I feel people enjoy listening to people's most ugliest stories. People want (and kind of expect in my opinion) for all bands to be completely open (especially the front men) and to blatantly blast their most inner darkest secrets, feelings, insecurities, etc.. Tim says with each album he gets "shit on a little more". I feel he's referring to that when other artists write lyrics that are complete bullshit and/or mean absolutely nothing, people praise them, or at least don't throw them right through the gutter. I think it goes unnoctied a lot of the time. So in order to have actual meaning that is personal, Tim puts his fucking soul into the music. And all he only gets is shitted on for this. People bitch about this and that, complain he's only a whiny little bitch, and finally slap the word emo across his and the band's faces. At least he's producing music that means something, while other people just turn on the Bullshit Machine and start feeding people. I also think that no matter how serious and deep his lyrics are people only focus on bitching about him (as mentioned above) or focus on stupid, meaningless shit. For an example, "'Who's Tim's latest whore?'" Kind of towards the end when Tim repeatedly mentions getting out the butcher's knife, I feel he's referring to the fans. He's pretty much saying, 'please dissect this song, cut it up, tell me what I did wrong, twist my words, give me all you got.' The butcher knife could also simply refer to cutting off his ugly organ. As it does point to that with these lyrics, "What a day to sever such ugly extremities. 'What a lovely day,' says the butcher as he raises his arm." The butcher is clearly cutting off (or out) something. Also is the butcher in this case the fans? What I'm trying to point out is you can go as deep as you want with this song. I'm probably digging way too deep. I also want to reinforce that these are just my views, I don't want to speak for Tim or the band in general at all. This is just how I view the song when I think about it in-depth and try to decide what was going through Tim's head.
Probably my favorite part of the song is, once the song appears to be over and goes into carnival type music: "And I am what is left: a puppet. Laughing at the look of amazement on the musician's face, Pinocchio dove off the cliff and swam away..." I think that this is referring to Tim, he feels like a fucking puppet because he is trying to give people what they want (writing serious songs), but yet he finds he will never make everyone happy and also with writing deep songs, it makes him feel like complete shit. It is seriously hurting him, whether it is because he is forced to relive something or he just doesn't like how easily people can twist his words. If he lets all this shit get to him, he feels all that is left of him is a puppet. He feels at times he is being controlled by people. He has to balance giving what the fans want and what he wants in songs. I feel a lot of artists struggle with this. I can easily connect with this because personally I know sometimes I'll give into people just to make them happy. If you do this too much, what is left of you? A puppet.
I seriously hope all of that made sense. I'm not going to lie, I'm starting to get tired so I hope all of that came out the way it did in my head. Again I want to reinforce that, that is not the correct way to view the song. There is no right way. Take it and view it as you wish. That was just my take on what the song means to myself and also what I thought was going through Tim's head. Why he wrote the words he did. If you don't agree, or find a cool interview of Tim explaining the song, please feel free to get a hold of me. I love looking at songs from other people's perspectives. A lot of times I find myself changing what I originally thought about the song and what it means to me. I'm also open for music discussions.
Moving away from the meaning, I want to touch base on why I love this song so much and why I felt it was worthy of holding a sport on this wonderful compilation in the first place. This is one of those songs that easily gives me the chills. I can hear and feel Tim's pain and desperation. Tim's voice is something else and is a main component as to why I love Cursive so much. As a listener you can't help but drink up all the beautifully voiced lyrics and fall in love (in a way) with Tim's misery. I'm not only referring to this song, but Cursive as a whole. You end up getting addicted to his sorrows and you want to listen to him scream his agonies. In a way, it makes you feel a bit better about yours (at least it does for me). Now I do not want to only focus on Tim's capability of drawing people in with his strong, unique, voice. Cursive itself sounds unique to me. I'm a big music junkie and I've never been able to find a band that sounds quite like Cursive, that is quite impressive. Each of their songs just have a certain vibe to them that in my opinion, no other band has. Looking directly at this song, "Butcher the Song" I absolutely love how dramatic it sounds. The song makes you listen. Take away the vocals and this would still be an amazing song. The music speaks for itself. At first it's not that powerful of a rhythm (still strong though), it catches your ears attention, but it isn't until roughly twenty seconds in when it really picks up (along with Tim's vocals) and grabs your ears with a vice like grip, making you listen. Whenever I listen to this song I cannot help but bob my head to it, along with singing/screaming the lyrics out desperately. It is such a perfect song that I cannot find a single flaw with. People might argue that the music can get old. It does pretty much keep the same sound and rhythm for the full three and a half minutes of the song, but what I have to say to that argument is, would getting five dollars every two minutes get old? Yeah after hearing about thirty seconds of the song you could probably expect that the sound isn't really going to change, and for me that is a O. K.. Once you get five dollars every two minutes for a week that is probably going to be expected too. Anyways, my point is that that sound will never get old for me. If they turned that puppy into a ten minute song, I could never get sick/old of it.
I feel it's about time to wrap this present off and deliver it to you guys. I feel as though my job is done for this song and this is now ready to hopefully be read by many people. As a final thought if I ever start to get a following of readers I'd like to know from you, what makes a perfect song? What's number one on the list? What's the last thing you think about when deciding if a song is good or not? What's an example of a perfect song for you? Those are just a few things to think about and hopefully respond to. As stated this would be an example of a perfect song and a stellar band. I hope to be hearing from you humans sometime. Until then (or until my next update), stay fresh.