My Head's Only Medicine
Dear Patrick, Pete, Joe, and Andy,
Tonight the headphones will deliver to me the words that you can’t say. Or at least haven’t said in a long time now. I can’t shake this feeling that I probably won’t ever again. At least not in the way I used to. It’s something I’m still trying to come to terms with. Of course I wouldn’t want you to feel confined and constricted to only a few ways of doing things, no artist ever wants to feel like some sort of one trick pony. As you said yourselves in, what a lot of people assumed was your last song ever, wanting to be better than our head’s only medicine.
I would imagine it’s something every band and artist has to deal with when evolving or I suppose in your case revolutionizing your sound. That probably grating and annoying person on the internet whining about how your “old sound was better” before you “sold out” and I certainly hope I’m not coming across as doing so through this letter. You’re well within your rights to do whatever you want with your art.
I respect that and that is all I will say on that matter for now, because I do not want it to be the focal point of this letter. I can’t deny that I long for those days but there comes a time where one must try to let go for the sake of their own health and happiness.
For the sake of simplicity I will only be focusing on the four major album releases (sorry, Evening Out With Your Girlfriend). Four uniquely distinct albums that mean a great deal to me.
To say Take This To Your Grave was an influential album in the pop punk space would be putting it lightly. An angry, more aggressive, no-holds-barred approach to a genre that was in need of somewhat of a new blueprint. No wonder it caught the attention of so many within the pop punk scene at the time of its release. Not bad for a bunch of 20-something baby faced kids driving around in an overheated van.
What a strange time it must have been for you all after the release of From Under The Cork Tree. A melancholy, sad, and extremely personal album that, has always been interpreted by me as you saying “this is how we’d conduct ourselves if we were famous.” Sugar We’re Goin’ Down sure did pay for your kids’ college huh Andy? And Pete, you went to hell and back getting this album done and dusted. I’m glad you’re still here and that you didn’t give up. It’s obvious you poured your heart and soul into the lyrical content of this album.
“OH SHIT. WE’RE FAMOUS.” Or as it’s better known, Infinity On High, Your most satirical, self-deprecating, and musically diverse album to that point. Lamenting on the very idea of “celebrity” and loathing the very idea that someone could be seen as above another person simply because they have public careers. That was a pretty bold position to take, you know, right as you became celebrities. Joe always blows me away with his sections to this day.
Folie A Deux. What a divisive album. The exhaustive recording process, crowds booing you at shows when you would play songs from it. I bet it was a very thankless time in your lives. For what it’s worth, I think it’s your best album to date. It is a reflective, almost resigned work that expands upon the lyrical themes of the previous album but does so with remarkably varied instrumentation, much more flowery and verbose lyrics, as well as being the album that stands the test of time the best.
You burned out, creatively, physically, and mentally. You gave it your all. And you know as well as anyone, once you give that you can’t realistically give any more. It must have been a tough decision to go on hiatus, but from what I know if it sounds like you didn’t, you might not have come back at all.
I cannot thank you enough for having such a profound influence on, not only my personal music taste, but how I have a much broader perspective of what good art is, and needs to be. In fact without you, I probably wouldn’t be writing this letter all these years later. I don’t write letters to anyone you know.
It’s still hard for me to accept that this era of your careers as artists is over. The image I was so accustomed to, the sound I expected, the poignant lyricism, I keep hoping against hope that I’ll wake up the next morning and find you’ve released a single from your album that makes me think of Fall Out Boy circa-2003, but that morning still hasn’t come, and I don’t suspect it ever will.
That glimmer of hope, that whiff of expectation will never leave me though. I won’t stop hoping that we will receive something of a full circle.
Because believers never die.
Thanks for everything,
Peter
Tonight the headphones will deliver to me the words that you can’t say. Or at least haven’t said in a long time now. I can’t shake this feeling that I probably won’t ever again. At least not in the way I used to. It’s something I’m still trying to come to terms with. Of course I wouldn’t want you to feel confined and constricted to only a few ways of doing things, no artist ever wants to feel like some sort of one trick pony. As you said yourselves in, what a lot of people assumed was your last song ever, wanting to be better than our head’s only medicine.
I would imagine it’s something every band and artist has to deal with when evolving or I suppose in your case revolutionizing your sound. That probably grating and annoying person on the internet whining about how your “old sound was better” before you “sold out” and I certainly hope I’m not coming across as doing so through this letter. You’re well within your rights to do whatever you want with your art.
I respect that and that is all I will say on that matter for now, because I do not want it to be the focal point of this letter. I can’t deny that I long for those days but there comes a time where one must try to let go for the sake of their own health and happiness.
For the sake of simplicity I will only be focusing on the four major album releases (sorry, Evening Out With Your Girlfriend). Four uniquely distinct albums that mean a great deal to me.
What a strange time it must have been for you all after the release of From Under The Cork Tree. A melancholy, sad, and extremely personal album that, has always been interpreted by me as you saying “this is how we’d conduct ourselves if we were famous.” Sugar We’re Goin’ Down sure did pay for your kids’ college huh Andy? And Pete, you went to hell and back getting this album done and dusted. I’m glad you’re still here and that you didn’t give up. It’s obvious you poured your heart and soul into the lyrical content of this album.
“OH SHIT. WE’RE FAMOUS.” Or as it’s better known, Infinity On High, Your most satirical, self-deprecating, and musically diverse album to that point. Lamenting on the very idea of “celebrity” and loathing the very idea that someone could be seen as above another person simply because they have public careers. That was a pretty bold position to take, you know, right as you became celebrities. Joe always blows me away with his sections to this day.
Folie A Deux. What a divisive album. The exhaustive recording process, crowds booing you at shows when you would play songs from it. I bet it was a very thankless time in your lives. For what it’s worth, I think it’s your best album to date. It is a reflective, almost resigned work that expands upon the lyrical themes of the previous album but does so with remarkably varied instrumentation, much more flowery and verbose lyrics, as well as being the album that stands the test of time the best.
You burned out, creatively, physically, and mentally. You gave it your all. And you know as well as anyone, once you give that you can’t realistically give any more. It must have been a tough decision to go on hiatus, but from what I know if it sounds like you didn’t, you might not have come back at all.
I cannot thank you enough for having such a profound influence on, not only my personal music taste, but how I have a much broader perspective of what good art is, and needs to be. In fact without you, I probably wouldn’t be writing this letter all these years later. I don’t write letters to anyone you know.
It’s still hard for me to accept that this era of your careers as artists is over. The image I was so accustomed to, the sound I expected, the poignant lyricism, I keep hoping against hope that I’ll wake up the next morning and find you’ve released a single from your album that makes me think of Fall Out Boy circa-2003, but that morning still hasn’t come, and I don’t suspect it ever will.
That glimmer of hope, that whiff of expectation will never leave me though. I won’t stop hoping that we will receive something of a full circle.
Because believers never die.
Thanks for everything,
Peter
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