Music has this beautiful way of growing on you over time – shifting meaning – gaining deeper meaning the more that you listen to it. In fact, art does this the more you are exposed to it, and live with it as you breathe it in day in and day out. I always ran to the albums of MGK or Gracie Abrams when I actually needed to sit with my feelings, but for some reason never made art about their work, or dove into the lyrics of their work and expanded on why they meant so much to me.
This song at first wasn’t one that struck me. But the more I listened to it, and really after I saw the music video, everything clicked for me. Colson did an amazing job with the visuals on this – and having a song that had a two part song style, segregating its sound to differientiate the ‘cool’ from the ‘free’ and real, really metaphorically set up this album from sunrise to sunset.
When I first heard the song I got it, but I didnt get it. After I watched his art in visuals, I understood it. The separation of expectation and past — moving forward and shedding the expectation from society.
Lyrical Breakdown
Can’t shut me up
I put my faith in a loaded gun
They tried to cut me down
I was raised in a dying town, yeah
I miss my drugs (drugs)
They been my friends since twenty-one
Still, I’m burning out (out)
You’ll probably die before I make you proud, yeah
This first verse feels like the beginning of the story. The fool that trusts the things he shouldn’t – the person who shoots himself in the foot. The boy that was supposed to go no where because he came from no where.
Now that he’s sober, he lost the one thing he had that was consistently in his life – the one thing that he could depend on – so he’s burning out but in a different way. Still unable to make people proud – but I take this as he can’t really live up to his own standards. He feels like he is the let down. But also by the time he made it out of his cage he had lost some of those he loved. So what if the people he wanted to make proud died before he got to the point he was proud of himself?
But also in other songs he references that his friends all die before 29, so drugs were the constant thing that outlasted those deaths and were there for him.
All the pages are blank ’til my life goes to shit
I know I do that on purpose just to write again
This is my favorite line in the song to be honest, I love the way it’s sang, I love the frame in the music video, and I love the repetitive theme it shows in his older music. It’s a recurring theme in his music. That he can’t write until he’s broken, and that his labels all despise it.
My label hates that I’m like this / I gotta go through shit to keep writing
-all I know – MGK and Trippie Redd
As someone with manic depression [bi-polar 2], – I relate to this a lot. With manic depression, my highs are medium – I dont really experience joy, but I do experience massive lows. My biggest and most prominent memories are full of pain. Those are the moments in my life that are tied to emotions. I dont really feel pride, or joy. I feel fleeting moments of contentness or what I think is happiness but definitely not ‘joy’ in the way others feel it. However, that is what makes my art making more prevalent. The time I produce the most work is when I feel I’m a tad underwater. When I am struggle is when I make the most successful art… and I think that’s a very common and shared experience among artists.
Paint my complex (paint it black)
Burn my last check (yeah, burn it all)
Lose all contact (’til I’m gone again)
Fake my own death (fuck it all)
Make me feel like I’m alive (yeah)
All of these lines are a way to cover up – rid the past. Cover up your ego, hide in the shadows, get rid of the money, get rid of all of the connections, pretend like you dont exist, and disappear – because that in itself would produce freedom. To me, this sets up a lot of the album [definitely vampire].
Run, rebel, run
Don’t let ’em turn you into what they want
I’m bad to the bone
Two wheels and the body’s chrome, yeah
I love this entire part in the music video – it all feels so sarcastic. Like he branded himself to be this big bad boy, but he’s just a weirdo fun nerd. He is definitely showing that in this album – just a fun, awkward, goofy boy who is finally not afraid to show it. A rebel on the run, running away from expectations, rebelling against the industry, and involving himself in multiple genres, telling the media to fuck off and responding ironically to media which they publish like he’s serious.
Now I know two wheels and the body’s chrome is a motocycle reference, but I also think it’s an ode to the industry seeing him as just a machine that makes music and something they can throw very harmful words at without any repercussions . But also maybe this is a ‘baddd to the bone’ song reference lol
My speech still slurs
I started drinking after I left church
But I still can’t sleep
This medication doesn’t work on me, no
All of this feels pretty metaphoric to me- The remaining effects after rehab. Lasting effects after years of abuse. Relapse after leaving the facility. Lasting effects and consequences of things that used to work that no longer do to cure the pain. Nothing that used to be a solution works the way it did.
But as far as repenting goes – many people have and do, ask for forgiveness and carry on to repeat their sins. The idea of asking for forgiveness and hoping for change doesn’t work – and simply hoping the urge to sin will vanish doesn’t work. Vices do not just vanish – and sometimes vices themselves morph to need stronger vices to prove any relief.
[repeat chorus]
hit the switch
Oh, take me somewhere cheap
Where the living is easy (uh)
Out of all their reach
Set my spirit free
This switch really does set up this entire album. Burn the last check, forget the money
I’m hiding in the hills, but this not where I belong
I don’t have no friends in this motherfuckin room
When does all this end? I’ve been stayin’ up ’til dawn
Runnin’ by myself, but the devil came along, yeah
-hiding in the hills – mgk and trippie redd
I wish I was back in the days
When I had a shitty shirt with my hat backwards
Now I’m alone in a vamp castle
I’m telling myself it’s the last caspule
But why would I even wanna be alive
-lost boys – mgk and trippie redd
he sings about this a lot.. actually. the idea of hating fame, missing the old days, but also loving being an artist. wanting to be out of the reach of the spectacle – out of the reach of the pressure of what people want him to be where he has to pretend to be someone and free to be who he wants, and what made him want to produce music in the first place.
I feel confined by societal norms
I was born to walk the line
Survived being insecure
But it led to my decline (uh-uh)
Another thing he has sang quite a bit about is being trapped by genres.
These the type of raps that you can’t reenact with AI (bitch)
I see people mad that I can cross over like AI (bitch)
I can do rap or country or punk, or say “Fuck it, and do nu-metal” (bitch)
I don’t worship the devil
That’s just what they say when you get on this level (yeah)
-el pistolero – mgk
He’s been recently crossing over into many genres, as he has been walking the line between pop rock, rap, country, and now true pop [cliche]. But even recently with his cover of sun to me he has been proving that he can do it all successfully.
He ‘survived’ being ‘insecure’ but it was all faking it- hiding who he was, and it led him to true unhappiness.
This time, I don’t think I’ll turn back
This time, I’ma do shit my way
I’m gone by the time they come back
This route is a one road highway
Same face with a brand-new wardrobe
My old clothes in gasoline
Smoke hand-rolled cigs, I’m a old soul
I feel just like James Dean
The best verse in the whole song.
This is a one way street – no going back – burning the past, getting rid of the things that I hid behind, and clothing myself with the things that make me ‘me’. As taylor swift said, the old taylor can’t come to the phone right now, she’s dead, a new rebirth – with someone he is proud of – him. Not someone who he has to play any more.
he’s finally ready to show the world who he is. without hiding – without being the media’s version of ‘cool’ – he’s getting rid of everything he pretended to be.
Who am I when the music stops?
And the character that I’ve been playing is really just broken and fucking lost?
I swear, I’ve been telling you over and over again in all of these songs
But they don’t hear nothing I’m writing, ’cause they’re too busy trying to write me off
And they go on, and on, and on-dont let me go – mgk
Oh, take me somewhere cheap
Where the living is easy
Out of all their reach
Set my spirit free
What’s left behind? What’s left behind?
Can’t take it with me
Nothing’s left behind, nothing’s left behind
Can’t take it with me
in the music video he is riding on his motorcycle – so these lines hit more powerfully, because he can’t take anything with him – he doesn’t have room. All he has room for is himself, and what is on his body. He is ridding his past self, leaving it behind him, and moving on with who he wants to be. But the reality is, althought he’s leaving things behind, nothing’s left behind – because it was never him.
Image Interpretation
As I think about this song in relation to me – a lot of it hits in different ways.
The first big connection is letting go of who I thought I had to be and allowing myself to be who I am. This comes up in the form of masking and also just basic human tendencies. Half a year ago I was formally diagnosed with autism, bipolar 2 [also known as manic depressive disorder] and obviously generalized anxiety disorder. The masking was interesting to learn and catch myself doing – I am a p h e n o m e n a l masker. It’s how I rock interviews, connect with students, my family – everything. I do it so well, I don’t realize I do it. The only time I don’t do it really, is at concerts… which is why I love music concerts so much.
The idea of letting go of cool – is everything. Letting go of presenting... because god, is it exhausting. I mask somewhat, I am learning to control my urges, and know maybe when to mask and when to not [lol]. I am learning being super direct and unmasking is a bit much to people who are a bit uncomfortable in their skin or super sensitive. Things that really do not bother me at all feel very bothersome to others – and although I cannot comprehend it – I must be sensitive to it. But letting go of all of the voices in my head from the past telling me I do things because I’m controlling, bossy, particular, a freak, are all invalid – I can’t take them with me where I am going. They don’t serve me any more.
The second big take away from this song that I gathered up for myself is this expectation of what artist is. I have felt this since the day I picked up the camera. I spoke about it in my journey in Graduate school – during my early years as a professor, and I teach about it to my students too when they say ‘but I’m not an artist, I’m just a photographer.’
The invalidation is so real. But what’s the difference? You make art. Visual art. Either way. And it all has a concept whether it’s rooted in 12c art history with 15 art theory cross over links or a reference to a tiktok reel you saw 15 minutes ago. It’s all art. I remember in Graduate school making work about body building, being anorexic, not being thin enough, and talking about like I didn’t fit the mold of artist. Because artists didn’t work out, they were just thin or they were not. But I didn’t feel like I belonged as an athlete. I remember people being blown away my work included me lifting weights and … in a positive way, but also just couldn’t believe I got up at 4 am to lift every day.
And then came in my music choices. I love indie music, I love heavy metal, but more than anything I love artists like Taylor Swift, MGK, Gracie Abrams, etc. And for the longest time, I felt like I had to hide that because it wasn’t cool artist enough.
All of these faux labels and constrictions put on us from the mouths of others that we can’t fit in – when we were born to walk the line. Dabble in it all. Appreciate it all. I run to the songs of Camden by Gracie Abrams, Dont let me go and Indigo by MGK, This is me Trying by Taylor Swift, and I make art. I make art about grief and pain. I make art about music and connection. I also make art about other’s lives and their journey with love and loss. I can do it all – and I am doing it all.
What’s left behind? What’s left behind?
Can’t take it with me
Since I am shooing film for this project – it’s a lot more slow processing, which really allows me to really think about what I want these images to be. I really want each image to feel americana while also commenting on myself and the anxiety I feel within American right now. So I have photographed many of these images so far, but they are waiting for processing! So they will be coming out slowly but surely.