Derrida Makes a Différance
MMM closer: intelligence is a mistake, no friends in space: if nothing matters, living in the meaningless frees you; Big Bang separated matters into places, we are the sun, to be a son, meaning in family.
Official video
Listen: SpotifyApple MusicYouTube
ISRC QZK6P2060463 (soundexchange)
Track eighteen, the closer on Masks and Monsters (August 2020). Luke solo; the North Park lockdown record ends here, after Mystery Machine’s nostalgic sickness, by trading the cartoon shell for cosmic philosophy.
The title puns on différance, Derrida’s term for meaning that’s always deferred, never fully present. The song runs that pun through physics: matter the stuff, matters the importance. It opens in Fermi loneliness (don’t look too long for the aliens / we might as well accept we do not have a single friend out there), works through the human comedy (we kill and we create / we sit and masturbate), and lets the chorus hammer the joke before spelling it out: we do not matter much / if at all.
Then the turn, which is the whole point: but living in the meaningless / a freedom can come out of it. Not leaving the meaninglessness, living in it long enough for freedom to leak out. The Big Bang verse splits the pun clean (Big Bang might’ve separated / all that matters into places) and the close lands small on the sun/son homophone: to be the sun / to be a son / I find my meaning in my family. Meaning after the cosmic shrug comes from family, not from any answer to the purpose of life.
Philosophical thread continues on Don’t Know Much, What Makes You You, 1101. The Bent Stick (essai #1), meaning bends at the waterline when languages meet, same stick-in-river image.
Written, performed, mixed, and mastered by Luke Francis Walton. Album art by Gentle Giant Illustrations.
Lyrics
Intelligence Is a mistake Genetic combinations Infinite in all this space Don't look too long For the aliens We might as well accept We do not have a single friend Out there We kill and we create We sit and masturbate Oh Sweet Gaia, cry a tear I'll turn it into beer Oh Dominion we pursue Dominion never knew we were born It didn't matter much We do not matter much If at all Don't matter much You do not matter much Let freedom ring The purpose of life Oh The purpose of life Oh The purpose What a bummer What a fate It's lonely here in outer space If nothing really matters Then why do I gotta live? But living in the meaningless A freedom can come out of it And I can see my tiny little place inside the One Yeah Big Bang might've separated All that matters into places But our energy is unmistakably The same as in the sun We are the sun And that's enough for me To be the sun To be a son I find my meaning In my family Yeah yeah Yeah yeah Yeah yeah