Appetite whetter, perhaps

I imagine what comes below the asterisk below to be the start of a set of thorough liner notes for the CD for Jon I finished sequencing today. Whatta sentence that was. Anyway. I like the idea of writing a set of liner notes to accompany the songs. Not so much to explain or defend the selections or the sequencing, but rather to provide some Jon-related context for the songs and the sequence. After all, I think you'd not find Jon listening to the kind of songs on this album. Vice versa me and his music - although in the name of research I'll have to dive into "Sehnsucht" sometime soon. In the meantime, here's Track 1 of the CD and its accompanying liner note. If you would like a copy of the CD, or a copy of the complete liner notes, or both, email the Disruptive Juxtapositioner.

*

Track 1: The Zombies, The Way I Feel Inside

Most people familiar with this song are so familiar because they saw it prominently featured during The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. What happened was that Ned (Kingsley) Zissou (aka Owen Wilson) crashes in the ocean with Steve Zissou (Bill Murray), and ends up dying. This Zombies track is what plays during the seaside funeral, with Cate Blanchett and Bill Murray and the other bereaved making no recorded sounds on the soundtrack; all you can hear during this scene is this song. It’s haunting. What I recall also about the scene is that during the helicopter crash into the ocean, there’s complete silence; onscreen, you get a great many black screens, with in addition to those a few hazy, rapid-fire remembrances of Ned from earlier in the movie. Even more haunting is the occasional screen of complete, uniform red, an effect which accurately conveys the sense that this is a serious crash and there is blood in the water. I imagine that this flash of red—no more than 16 or so frames (film runs at 32 frames per second, normally)—might have been similar to what Jon saw in his last second or half-second of life. Jon might mock the spare, even sappy tone with which this song proceeds, and kicks off this double album. Especially with the vague organ tones in the background. But as so much of Jon’s life was a kind of struggle to articulate himself. Never one to discuss the peaks and valleys of his emotional EEG, Jon’s tight-lippedness goes hand-in-hand with the struggles of the singer here to articulate himself and his deep hope that the addressee of the song cares for him. Despite his inability to share the titular way he feels, the singer can’t help but dream that the failure of communication won’t obstruct the love he knows exists between himself and the song’s other characters. Which is not a dream, but rather the way things are.


“The Way I Feel Inside”

The Zombies

Should I try to hide
The way I feel inside
My heart for you?
Would you say that you
Would try to love me too?
In your mind could you ever be
Really close to me?
I can tell the way you smile
If I feel that I could be certain then
I would say the things
I want to say tonight

But till I can see
That you'd really care for me
I will dream that someday you'll be
Really close to me
I can tell the way you smile
If I feel that I could be certain then
I would say the things
I want to say tonight

But till I can see
That you'd really care for me
I'll keep trying to hide
The way I feel inside