HSHQ TASKSEVEN / HSHQAC2022 DAYEIGHT
— TIE YOURSELF TO ME: A PLAYLIST
i. can you feel the sun? : below the willow tree, i get hung up on my insecurities, rose coloured dopamine, my soul feels like it could be make-believe. below the willow tree i search to find some sense of identity, this weeping willow tree, sits in silence, sheds no tears for me. can you feel the sun? i do but i can’t see it. can you feel the breeze? i don’t, but i believe it, i don’t feel safe when i’m not alone. and i know and i know what you’re thinking, i like it on my own. but i’ll let you in if you say it’s okay.
if you know me well enough, you’ll know that i am capable of constructing an entire character off 1 song and this would be said song. kaspar would not exist without it. the weeping willow is a motif that i adored when i thought about it and it became something i wove throughout his history and his intro. kaspar is somebody who has one foot in an idealistic daydream, a beautiful vision, and the other in harsh reality. he is always reaching for something intangible and sometimes, he is so many steps ahead, so clear in his calculations that his mind is already in a conceivable future way before anyone else. this is why the refrain — can you feel the sun? i do, but i can’t see it, can you feel the breeze? i don’t, but i believe it. hits incredibly viscerally everytime i play it. if you read his intro, kaspar can come off a certain way, he’s not always understood in the ways he wants to be and thus has always felt safer either completely alone or in crowded places rather than intimate settings. he needs some form of cover, something to shade himself with, be it with other people, or an occasion. now that i’ve played him for two years, you’ll notice how his amiable way turns into a bullet train about to crash when someone suggests a friendly one on one or when he’s alone with someone he really likes. in many ways, he’ll always be the little boy, taking shelter under a giant weeping willow, sketching by himself or reading a book because others can be so needlessly unkind.
ii. blue moon rising : when the night, is falling, and the land is cold, and that secret you found in your pocket, will remain untold. there’s a storm out on the horizon, and it’s coming our way, by the light of the blue moon rising, shall we just run away? will i meet you down on the corner where our hopes and dreams were sold? by the poet and the loner, on the streets we paved with gold. the deeper that you get, the more you will regret living on the edge of the night, but the blazing sunset in your eyes means more to me than life. cause you make me feel electric, beauty in truth is hard to find, some of us bleeding and some of us needing to find a way. it’s getting closer can you feel it? i’m glad i found you just in time, some of us bleeding and some of us needing to find a way.
the beat of this is important. kaspar has a long stride and a steady gait. he is ambitious. he reads the social tea leaves, he tries to foretell the way the wind will blow next. he looks at what is in front of him and makes something of it all to add value. it is the only way he can value himself. but when someone like this is also a part-time daydreamer, what kind of person would he find in a partner? kaspar needs to be understood, he has no problem putting in the work and the effort to in his own way, repackage his thoughts over and over to someone else so they can get on his wavelength, so they can see what he sees, and he is willing to pick someone else’s brain to understand how they work. it is a little mechanical, but it is how he operates. he does not get offended when he is told he has gotten it wrong and will re-evaluate. it is why he is so reliable to wiebke. she is a safe person for him and he is safe for her. but opportunities to do this with others are few, and waiting around for some magical moment where someone comes along to just get you feels unrealistic, even to him. it’s as if there’s some secret to the universe ( the secret you found in your pocket will remain untold ) that he does not know how to unlock. so for a long time, because he was raised by aesthetes, he thought the ideal person would be kind, gentle, an optimist, encouraging ( like the image fanni created for herself, sorry isa, i will continue using this example until i find a better one ) but the type of person who would implicitly understand his raw beginnings, his thirst for progress is always someone with more edge. people like iena. beauty in truth, is definitely hard to find. if he had ever truly gotten to know fanni he would have discovered this very quickly. and now he’s with anya, found just in time. i love that this song was prophetic because it was one of the earliest ones i found and the narrative unintentionally came true.
iii. island in the sun : when you’re on a golden sea, you don’t need no memory, just a place to call your own as we drift into the zone, on an island in the sun. we’ll be playing and having fun and it makes me feel so fine i can’t control my brain.
it felt appropriate to include music from the early aughts. he would have been firmly entrenched in his adolescence, and the sort of listless mundane way weezer sings kind of fits the vibe he must have emanated back then: parents freshly divorced and trying to eke out space for himself that was more his than the tumult of his home life. in basel he was both getting bullied and hanging around with new acquaintances who were neither rich, nor titled. they introduced him to refined sugar and weed. he definitely still cannot control his brain.
iv. solid ground : how does it feel, when it’s quiet and calm? and will i be denied? how will it feel, when it’s time to move on? mother says kneel and pray. when it gets hard i will roll those sleeves, life can be so unkind. i will be found, on the edge of the world, where there’ll be no one around. solid ground. how does it feel to be on your own? no one to understand. i know i’m here and i don’t belong. i’m on my knees today. when it gets dark i will know no fear. life can be so unkind. hanging around on the edge of the world... finally no one around.
this song describes a certain heaviness that settled over him after his father died, but it isn’t one that is related to grief. it is one thing to grapple with the idea that your father — a man who cast a long shadow, but was even larger than life than even the shadow could represent — is no more, and it is another thing entirely to really feel the reality of the situation. not only has he passed, but the title of grand duke now rests on your head. this song is that quiet moment of the in between, when kaspar reaffirms with himself, his unflinching sense of duty, what he wants for rhine, and the inability to get used to the fact that on the tail of a personal tragedy, he can finally become the sort of man he has been waiting to grow into. there is apprehension of course, dietrich zielcke was popular and certain things kaspar intends to set in motion will have him rolling in his grave, will he be denied? how long will he have to wait before he initiates change? these thoughts fight with the push and pull he still feels with his upbringing, mother on one side, father on the other, but now, he is finally alone in schlöss brühl, experiencing what being alone in it feels like for the first time after wondering for so long about something that felt unfathomable. it’s a mixture of melancholy, uncertainty, imposter syndrome, worry because there is no longer any safety cord holding him up, and still... the realisation that despite all this, he does not feel fear. he will make rhine into what he believes it can be.
v. reconfiguration : i won’t fear my rivals, leave them in the silence, i live in the present, moment to moment, i will fear no future, come live on in silence, i live in the present, moment to moment, moment to moment. feels like i’m more myself — tearing off and on, next in line. feels like i’m always gone, sweet re-re-reconfiguration. everything is turning out like it wants to, feels like i’ve been here before and everything is turning out like it wants to feels like i’ve been.
kaspar isn’t somebody who worries too much about things that are too far into the future. there are two things for forecasts, the signs and signals, the numbers, and the social element. he does not try to control these things, he leans into what he sees coming. it is easier to adjust yourself and your facilities, pick them apart and re-forge again to ride that than trying to puppeteer those external forces. that kind of arrogance remains with royals. the thing about this is sometimes there are cyclical results, which kaspar doesn’t always enjoy, his goal is to break out of that.
vi. holy branches : when you were young, you’d bite your tongue. calm, always did what you were told, never ran your mouth. lived on tiptoes, only felt peace if by yourself, when mistakes don’t count. there’s a hole in your chest from the time you were born, one that don’t get filled, cause you’ve always known, you’re nothing they want. (...) but everybody's bones are just holy branches, cast from trees to cut patterns in the world and in time we find some shelter, spill our seeds and then wait for our turns. but for now we're adrift on the waves of discontent trying to carve our place all in hopes we'll be something they want, but i ain't holding my breath.
this first part of the song really felt like kaspar was being read so i kept it. the message of the song is very relevant to him and maybe the chip on his shoulder. his sense of duty is strong, he sees himself as a servant, as somebody who needs to be worthy of being a guide. he is well read, he has access to more information, the public won’t see it, they don’t know what they don’t know yet, not the way he does, but if he keeps going, if he keeps churning the results, maybe they’ll realise they wanted the same things all along.
