In this life, you're the one place I call home
In this life, you're the feeling I belong
In this life, you're the flower and the thorn
You're everything that's fair in love and war
When success is equated with excess
The ambition for excess wrecks us
As the top of the mind becomes the bottom line
Where success is equated with excess
Oh! Gravity. is a punk album that rejects the ideas that society gives us about life and meaning. I’m not looking at any songs in particular, since I’ve already looked at Oh! Grav., so I’m going to give each song a little more analysis instead.
Oh! Gravity. is the rejection of order in life, instead embracing the chaos that comes with life. The song itself is chaotic, which perfectly encapsulates the theme of the album and song. When you try to fix chaos, it’s hard, but when you embrace it, you can create beauty.
American Dream rejects the capitalistic and materialistic ideals of the American dream. This song rejects the idea that money and things are fulfilling, and instead wants to search for the things that are actually fulfilling.
Dirty Second Hands rejects the idea of ignorance as an excuse. We bear responsibility to and from our communities, so when things happen within those communities, we bear some amount of responsibility for those acts, especially if they’re done in our name.
Awakening is the rejection of monotony in favor of chasing our dreams. We often get too caught up in the bits and bolts of life to remember that we have things that we’re chasing after, and this song rejects the idea of just living to get by in favor of chasing our dreams, and being awake to the possibilities and opportunities of life.
Circles also rejects the monotony of life and longs for something more than what we have. It questions if our purpose is found in the monotony, or if it’s found outside of that. It’s the rejection of the machine in favor of really living.
Amateur Lovers rejects the idea of being quiet and closed with love. We grow up with the idea that we can only show love to and for certain things, but Amateur Lovers rejects that, instead embracing being open and loud about the things and people that we love.
Faust, Midas, And Myself is the rejection of temptation, and the rejection of power and wealth as things we’re supposed to find fulfilling. Faust uses Midas’s position as king and owner of the gold touch to tempt the narrator, which the narrator rejects in favor of his normal life. The narrator knows he has things to live for outside the chase of wealth and power, and would rather live his life for those instead.
Head Over Heels (In This Life) is less about rejection and more about the embracing of the things outside the status quo. It’s the embracing of chaos, life, love, and meaning in ways that the status quo doesn’t give us. This song is saying “no, I don’t want that, I want this”, and is open about it’s embrace.
Yesterdays is about the rejection of the “typical” ways of grieving. This song is heavy in its grief for the one who was lost. The narrator deals with his grief in his own time, in his own way, and eventually comes to terms with it. It acknowledges that grief is something that never really leaves us, and rejects the idea that healing means we never grieve for people again.
Burn Out Bright rejects settling, in favor of always reaching for something better. This song rejects the idea that it’s too late to live, in favor of the idea that we can always change, we can always burn brighter. We always have the chance to do more, to reach higher, to go further, and always try.
4:12 is embracing the moment, and rejects the idea of always thinking ahead or behind. It also rejects the idea that we can’t change, instead saying that change is always possible.
Let Your Love Be Strong quietly rejects pessimism. I wouldn’t call this an optimistic song, but it’s a song that knows that constant negativity won’t help. It’s a song that longing for something to help us through the negativity, and embraces the love that will help us through.
