COMMENTARY
I’m asleep”. Not wanting to die per se. Just wanting to feel better. Listening to it now, having talked to Dan, I can’t help but feel things have changed in spite of the fact that nothing has. Yet it’s so odd how context changes things. That line still hits me but it’s so easy to hear “I’m going to kill myself” and wonder if 16-year-old me was being a bit dramatic. While I don’t feel the same sadness anymore, the album still hits a certain something, be it sadness or nostalgia. Yet I also see hundreds of UniMelb students (if I’m being generous) going off to YouTube and screaming “Fuck you Jack Francis Musgrave, I listened to this for 15 minutes and didn’t even kill myself once.” Dan is still there next to me but the bag has been lifted. He’s not wailing. He’s smiling and chatting to me about ways to improve my web presence. This man is not the man who wrote Giles Corey to me. The issue is he did. But who the fuck am I to blame him anyway? He went from a man on the verge of suicide to having his own company, loving wife and son, and I feel what, disappointed? He hasn’t even changed all that much ideologically; he still gets sad, still gets depressed, he’s still a raging nihilist to the point of human abandon. Yet all this is delivered to an uneasy backdrop of professionalism and self-confidence. Maybe I don’t truly believe anyone is a nihilist until they’ve written a song called “Fuck the Universe” and personally replied to their fans’ Facebook comments with “Fuck Off And Die”. What is it that I’m worried about? That Dan is – god forbid – a poseur? It’s not even like I’m the same as I was when I heard it – my life has improved just as much as Dan has. So why am I feeling this apprehension? My interview with Dan places me in a state of existential contemplation, leaving me mulling over a comment a friend once made of why we are drawn to cult classics: “We want to feel different, unique. Liking things other people ‘don’t get’ validates our belief that we’re an individual.” Whereas once I felt challenged by it, now I feel as though he’s got it the wrong way around. Cult classics don’t make us feel like we’re unique, they comfort us with the knowledge that we aren’t. The Cult is all the weird kids of the country, getting together to ward off the loneliness. Because, in those moments, hearing my favourite album being played a metre in front of me while being pushed around by neo-nazi bogans, that crowd of thirty people feels like the world. Writing this, I’ve always been aware of getting to this point. Of reaching a conclusion that amounts to “I’unno”. And it’s still true. Cult classics still confuse me. I understand why we like them, but not how they become them. They sort of just are. What I do know is what draws people to them and next to me, Handsome Dan is sitting, reminding me why. Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636 Lifeline: 13 11 14 Suicide Line: 1300 651 251
ARTWORK BY AMIE GREEN
FARRAGO 2016 • EDITION THREE • 45