[SonjaK]

It is impossible to write something about 'Demolished Thoughts' without having any idea
about what Sonic Youth represented for contemporary music, what Thurston Moore was
for Sonic Youth and what Kim Gordon was for Thurston Moore. I assume that the readers
will not need any kind of historical/cultural introduction so I'll pass immediately to the point:
'Demolished Thoughts'.

Thurston Moore gets naked in front of people who really want to listen to him carefully, he
gets rid of his schemes and shoulders an acoustic guitar. Only this fact should sound as an
alert to the listeners: the king of noise decides scientifically to record a totally acoustic and
melodic, intimate and melancholic album. I can imagine him, sitting under some tree in a
park, far from people who pass and see him without looking out him: he sings for himself
softly, in such a way that nobody could really hear to the words he speaks, maybe
because he still does not know whether he wants to be understood or not.

************************************************** ************************************************** ****

The album opens with 'Benediction', sweet and painful. D-G (or something which really
sounds like that) two chords and a rhythm which give peace and goodness (oh, how far
is 'Confusion is Sex' from here!). Later, when the song goes on, the music becomes more
and more melancholic: just two verse and we slide in a minor tone, almost without realizing
it. The voice is worm, soft and enchanting, the words barely whispered, with deep sweetness…

With benediction in her eyes,
Our dearest gods are not surprised.
You better hold your lover down,
And tie him to the ground.
Whisper "I love you"
One thousand times into his ear, kiss his eyes,
And don't you cry girl, he won't disappear.
But I know better than to let you go.

With benediction in her mind,
She'll never get you back in time.
You better hold your lover down,
And tie her to the ground.
Simple pleasures strike like lightening,
Scratches spell her name.
Thunder demons swipe her halo,
And then they run away.
But I know better than to let her go.

With benediction in her eyes,
Our dearest gods are not surprised.
You better hold your lover down,
And tie her to the ground.
Simple pleasures strike like lightening,
Scratches cross her name.
Whisper "I love you my darling, life is just a flame".
But I know better than to let her go.

I know better than to let you go.
I know better than to let her go.
I know better than to let you go.

I know better...
I know better...
I know better...


The theme of the song seems quite evident: a dying love. There's sorrow on both sides,
like in all long time stories… However I'd like to stress something here and there.
She accepts his decision ("benediction in her eyes"), she knows that it's too late
to make him change his mind ("she'll never get you back in time"), she'd have the
right to get really angry but she doesn't ("thunder demons swipe her halo and then
they run away"): she accepts with great courage the thing is happening. About him…
well, he'd prefer something else, maybe that she tried to hold him. Unfortunately he
must admit to be not surprised about her reaction: he knows her too much to expect
something different. However he feels a big pain realizing this (I'm thinking in
particular to the third strophe, when Thurston's voice literally trembles when saying the
sentence "our dearest gods are not surprised"). It is now almost too easy to understand
that the couple here is not invented… but the question rise spontaneously: why should
Thurston decide to leave Kim if this is so painful for him?
Some musical details. the G (or whatever it is) picking that one can hear on the "whisper"
in the first strophe (it seems like an harp) could give some hope, but theres no similar
picking in the analogous points of the subsequent strophes: it seems to me like Thurston
himself does not believe in this hope. Moreover the song seems to finish with a (harmless)
fade-out, but then he gives us a last unexpected picking, that one could interpret as
"conclusive" and "reconciling" if he had played a D (or whatever it is), but it is a G (or whatever)
which sounds more like something unfinished: on the other hand the album just started,
and there are still a lot of things to be said before arriving to a conclusion.

************************************************** ************************************************** ****

'Illuminine' follows, and it has the smell of a perfect sunset. This time there is no trick: we are
in a minor tone and, a part from some points, the whole song will rest there. The guitar
seems to weep softly and he does not seems to feel better…

Sunday lights come take my nights
And I'll bend down to my knees and die
Illuminate my soul to take
Illuminine your clear cool wine

Going back alone, your lovers light is home
Where the hallowed shine, the lights lighting the road

Monday cries, white clouds turn grey
But your perfect lights brings the sun to play
Illuminine, illuminine
Your clear cool love, your clear cool light

Morning comes awake to your wildest dreams
Let the daylight break, set the angels free

Sunday lights come take my nights
And I'll bend down to my knees and die
Illuminine illuminine
Illuminine illuminine
Illuminine illuminine
Illuminine illuminine
Illuminine illuminine
Illuminine illuminine

The main character of this song does not sleep at night, and when he can sleep he
makes dreams from which he awaken with effort and pain: he calls them wild (free?)
and he encourage himself to ignore them ("let the daylight break, set the angles free").
He speaks about a lonely way home (not a "house") from which it comes a holy light
which illuminate his way… We still have 'Benediction' in our ears, so it is natural to think
that the nightmares are exactly the reasons that made Thurston decide to breakup
wit Kim. The words "your clear cool wine/love/light" let us glimpse an exiting love which
is not the one at home… I'd like also to point out that the home and the weak up from
the nightmares are underlined by an harp (this time it is for sure a harp) and ended up
with some natural harmonics: it seems that he's looking in those clear and clean sounds
some motivations for not going away.

************************************************** ************************************************** ****

We arrive to 'Circulation' and the rhythm increases together with the anxiety. Thurston's
voice does not tremble anymore, the guitar is nervous: the picking is violent and the
bass underlines it with strength, so much that one barely notice that there's no
drums (except for some maracas). The strings are always there, faithful, to keep high
the level of melancholy…

Perfect lights are backwards
Refracted cries
Needle hits black lacquer
Speakers forgive lies

I'm not running away
Circulation makes her crazy
She's not here to stay
She just came by to shoot you baby

Perfect lights are backwards
Refracted cries
Needle hits white lacquer
Speakers forgive lies

I'm not running away
Circulation makes her crazy
She's not here to stay
She just came by to shoot you baby

If in the previous track the perfect light was a reason for joy (it makes rise the sun) now,
on the contrary, it seems to illuminate a murder scene: the fact that the light comes back
doesn't give wellness… Thurston seems to have great care in repeating us that he's not
leaving, but he's not convincing: we are only at track n°3 and he said that too many times,
like he's trying to justify himself. And there's a woman who comes to kill: not for staying,
as he says, but it sound like a lie (to be forginen!)… The resounding (pre)ending of
the song brings with it the end of the (his?) world: at the end of the track, also the listeners
can feel the physical and mental exhaustion of the author.



(end of pt.1)

[SonjaK]

(pt. 2)

With 'Blood never lies' we touch the top of the sweetness: the arpeggio, the voice,
the backing vocals, the strings… everything contributes to brush the heart of the listener,
to lull and warm it…

Every time they come for you
You know it's time to run
Everybody knows it's true
How your love has come undone

Now he has his chance to take
And he will take you out of here
Take you to your secret state,
Where blood is light, blood is clear
Oh the blood is clear,
Oh the blood is clear

Every time they take you away,
He knows you're never gone
You know you stole his heart away,
And he falls into the freezing sun
Now he has to kidnap you,
And keep you bound in endless light

And you know he never lets you leave
'Cause blood is clear, it never lies,
Oh blood never lies,
Oh blood never lies

And you know he never lets you leave
'Cause blood is clear, it never lies
Oh blood never lies,
Oh blood never lies,

And you know he'll never let you leave
'Cause blood is clear, it never lies
Oh blood never lies
Oh blood never lies
Oh blood never lies
Oh blood never lies

A love song, nothing more and nothing less. A complete, intimate, delicate and sweet love
song… but still painful: the woman who he's speaking to stolen his heart, she makes his
blood boil, but the melody is too melancholic for let us think that this is an happy love. On
the other hand, also the lyric is not about an happy love: destabilishing, if at all ("he falls
into the freezing sun")!
Thurston can lie (with us, with Kim and with himself), but his blood cannot: he is fallen
head over heels for a woman. "For Kim!" we had said in happier days… But he says
clearly "he will take you out of here, take you to the secret state, where blood is light,
blood is clear": he wants to bring her somewhere far from indiscreet eyes, a place where
their love can be free… Maybe this is an impertinent hypothesis? At this point maybe not…
And I'd not say that this is just an infatuation: the deep sweetness of the arpeggio, the
emotion coming out from his voice, make me think that he's really in love…

************************************************** ************************************************** ****

Orchard Street is a street in Manhattan where there are many luxurious hotels
(see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchard_Street_(Manhattan) ). Thurston talks about
it as follows.

Milky cement light, radiation boys
Breaking happy heart, blood and liquid noise
I see your searchlight eyes, the stony demons bliss

Wet and drunken desire, dripping tears
Grape stained escape, an immortal kiss
Free jazz hotel, sweet now girl whispers

Crazy crazy crazy night sky orange
Promise and deceit, blindfolds and prayer
Orchard Street is anchored in divinity's shadow

A secret meeting in a hotel room, two bodies desiring each other, with an obsessive
desire: one among the two is betraying his official partner ("breaking happy heart")
and he feels like he was a monster ("the stony demon bliss"). They drink and let them go
("grape stained escape, an immortal kiss"): they feel like they were protected by a good
god who covers them with his shadow… maybe this is the place he was talking about in
the previous track? The blood, the one who never lies, now is even noisy: it is impossible
to make it shut up, so maybe it is better to go along with it. The music is almost oppressive,
like it was permeated by guilt-feelings, and the chaotic ending in crescendo pre-announce
an explosion…

************************************************** ************************************************** ****

The tone gets sweet again with 'In silver rain with a paper key', the saddest song of
the whole album…

There was a time when you could find him
Just by staring at the sky
A perfect stranger out of nowhere
Nothing to do, nothing to hide

And he disappears today
Where he goes he cannot say
The silver rain is all you see
You lost your lover

It used to be so easy baby
Just to find you in the clear
But the streets have ghosts that call you back
Before you get too near

The days that dare to never end
You'd whisper baby, please do it again
Now it's an echo without refrain
You lost your lover

I seem to recall sometimes last fall
Brown leaves crowned around your head
Now I'm back in town and I'm looking around
Will I ever see your eyes again?

Where did you disappear today?
I turn the corner and I see you fade
In silver rain with a paper key
You lost your lover

I don't think I need to add anything: the chronicle has been too much meaningful about
this song.




(end of pt.2)

[SonjaK]

(pt.3)


It is a deep anguish the one that can be heard in the first notes in 'Mina Loy': it is not
hard to imagine the that music as the soundtrack for a particularly anxious scene in a thriller
movie, a scene in which the public already knows that the killer is there, hiding, ready to kill…
Later the music changes, the killer's knife hammers repeatedly in the belly of the victim who
lays down dripping blood.

Found a diamond in the gutter
On an early morning freeze
In your mouth it turns to water
Onyx eyes swallow me

I don't care what it takes
All he wants is you to love him
Without shame, without shame
Without shame, without shame
Without shame

Found a diamond in the gutter
On an early morning freeze
In your mouth it turns to water
Onyx eyes swallow me

I don't care what it takes
All she wants is you to love her
Without shame, without shame
Without shame, without shame
Without shame, without shame
Without shame, without shame
Without shame, without shame
Without shame, without shame

Mina Loy was a versatile artist (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mina_Loy), and also the
title of a Billy Corgan's song, in his solo album 'TheFutureEmbrace'. There's a verse,
in Corgan's lyric, which sounds very appropriate to me:

Can I give my old heart to you?
Can I give my old heart to you?
'Cause when this feeling starts
That's when I blow it all away

Here we are: a man and a woman who'd like to love each other without shame (Thurston
repeat it like a mantra). A knife planted against Kim, Sonic Youth and Thurston himself. The
drums appearing in the second strophe beats a cardiac rhythm, Thurston's voice is just
a whisper: he's completely overpowered by the feelings he has for this woman.

************************************************** ************************************************** ****

In 'Space' the music lulls us in a sweet waving into space-time. Concentrated in few seconds
(forty in a more than 6 minutes song) we can find these words

I used to have all the time in the world
Cruising galaxies in search of gold
Another planet with no one home

It was only a matter of time before
The space police discovered my crime
Forbidden visions etched in stone

It makes no difference to my death wish ray
Hearts get broken every day
Your undying lover is here and gone

One could think that the theme of this song is completely separated from the rest of the
album, but the last sentence gives us the correct key for interpretation: his secret love has
been discovered and he has nothing else to do except to be drag by the occurrences. Also
the listener, who is now in total empathy with the author, is suspended in a long musical
moment...

************************************************** ************************************************** ****

Finally 'January', the calm before the storm.

He sees her sleeping on the grass
I think I heard a distant splash
In July she came to play
By January he learns to pray.

Your shoes at the door
Waves come crashing to the floor
He sees your swimsuit on the grass
I thought I heard a distant..

His fears ("by january he learns to pray") just outlined, still suspended, like he didn't
want to recognize them as they are: the incomplete crescendo of the ending leaves us
waiting for the blow that, inevitably, now we know it, will come.

************************************************** ************************************************** ****

Ok. I'd have anything of this in mind without knowing about the divorce. Maybe this album
could not be understood when it was released because we all had blinkers: it's too much time
that Thurston and Kim are seen like a one almost supernatural being. But (of course!) this
is a false myth. It is worthwhile now to recall that the title of the album comes from far away,
youth memories appearing today with vehemence in author's mind:

It's time for them to realize
I'm more than what meets their eyes
I'm ripping away from their hypocrisy
Gonna make them stop make them see

I may be idle but I'm far from stagnant
The thoughts in my head have begun to fragment
I know what I want and I take what I need
I'm gonna make their society bleed

I confront what crosses my path
Demolished thoughts in the aftermath
I don't look back to see the remains
It's just another one of their games

(``It's Time'' - The Faith, 1982)

And maybe yes, we now realized it.

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For those who understand italian, you can find the original writing (which I think is more readable) here:

http://sonicyouth.forumfree.it/?t=59159249

maybe you can help improving the translation...