Arts & Entertainment

 

 

Song of the Week:
“Monday” by Wilco

Patrick Mackenzie, OP Contributor

 

I think this school year needs to start
on a happy note. Seeing as how most
people reading this column are at the start
of an eight-month slog through classes
good, bad and indifferent, I thought I’d
search the vaults for a song that could
touch upon school and do so in an
optimistic way —either through the lyrics
or through the music. With this week’s

installment I think I’ll been able to do
both.

Although not specifically about school,
“Monday” contains enough references to
the hallowed halls of academia to make it
eligible for this school year’s first Song of
the Week.

Released in 1996, “Monday” can be
found on Being There—perhaps one of
the greatest collection of songs in any

genre ever consigned to tape (if you are
at all interested in Rock/Country/Folk/
Noise, do yourself a favour and buy/
download it. Kill if necessary to get it).

Being There is a genre-transcending
record. Amid the slow country ballads
and occasional detour into experimental
noise, “Monday,” with its high energy
and electric guitars, punctures the
inherent darkness in Wilco’s music like an
exuberant drunk at a funeral.

Complete with a backing horn section,
the song is reminiscent of the Rolling
Stones’ “Heartbreaker.” But whereas
“Heartbreaker” wants to break your heart
with its jaunt through the underside of the
city, “Monday” wants to pick you up and
mix you a drink at the party of the year.

In terms of the lyrics, “Monday”
doesn’t appear to be about anything in
particular. Yet despite primary songwriter
Jeff Tweedy’s inclination towards the
obtuse and nonsensical, there is still
something familiar about “Monday’s”

lyrics. Seemingly evoking the simple
pleasures of wasted youth, Tweedy sings,
“He said/Monday, I’m all high/Get me out
of FLA/In school, yeah/I fooled ya/Now I
know I made a mistake.” In keeping with
the slacker student sentiment appearing
throughout the song (“I cut class in school
yeah”) the listener is also presented with
images of reckless abandon: “Blister on a
turnpike, let me by/I only want to wonder
why when I don’t want to die/Oooh, I
shot ya, yeah, I know/I only want to go
where my wheels roll.”

Rather than be an approximation of
some situation or story, the lyrics really
serve the life-affirming nature of the
music. And what could be more life-
affirming than guitars, bass, drums, and a
horn section?

Anyway, you don’t have to love Wilco,
but you better learn to like “Monday.”

It’s going to happen another 52 times this
school year.

 

jon Nodtveicdt:

Into Infinite Obscurity

Laura Kelsey, OP Opinions Editor

ds been over a year since
I stumbled upon a website that
announced my favourite vocalist
was dead. In August of 2006, Jon
N6édtveidt, front man and founder of
the black/death metal band Dissection,
shot himself in his
home, causing as much
controversy and as many
rumours as he had during
his life. It wasn’t that his

“how, in
general, a

in his religion of “anti-cosmos based
Satanism” that motivated his suicide,
or simply the fact that his raging river
of creativity had run dry, was not really
that important. In his heyday, Jon had
inspired many-a musician, myself
included. The Somberlain and Storm of
the Light’s Bane will always be hailed
as classic albums, and
the world of metal has
him to thank for them.
In late 2004, I had a

suicide was a surprise—to DETSON Can truly chance to meet Jon in

the contrary, Jon had not
only been contemplating
it but announcing it for
years. No, the speculation
swirled more around
what he had surrounded
himself with as he pulled
the trigger, and how many
satanic Bibles he used as
headrests as the bullet pierced his brain.

Jon had recently been released from
jail, and his band, always a force to
be reckoned with in the 90s, had just
released a new album entitled Reinkaos.
But the album was a terrible failure
in the eyes of most Dissection fans,
and I joked that it was the result of the
horrible reviews that further motivated
him to kick his own bucket.

Whether it was his intense belief

14

be evil if they
inspire such

great joy in

others.

London, and witness the
unholy gory-glory that
was Dissection—before
the release of Reinkaos.
A friend of mine had
set up an interview with
66 the guitarist/vocalist,
and I was happier than a
Viking at a pillaging to
go along with him.
Jon was fresh from jail and
obviously happy to be free. The fact that
he had been convicted as an accessory
to murder did not cross my mind as I sat
myself next to the Swede; he was my
musical icon, but not my god—sharing
a certain aspect of my life with someone
else does not connect me completely to
his ideals. Besides, Jon came across as
a well-spoken, highly intelligent man

who spoke passionately about his music
and beliefs—not an enraged killer. The
show that followed was the best concert
I have ever seen.

The experience caused me to wonder
about his evil reputation, and how, in
general, a person can truly be evil if
they inspire such great joy in others.
Does an evil man create “evil joy”
to prosper in the souls of those that
appreciate him? I thought it strange
that a man with such supposedly

 

 

misanthropic views would choose to sit
down for an hour-long interview, and
then shake hands and sign autographs
after his concert—shouldn’t he have
sacrificed us instead?

But regardless of his motives for
suicide, or his jail term, Jon Nédtveidt
left behind a musical legacy that will
instigate further head banging for many
years to come. Well... his first two
albums will anyway.