alex turner is one of my favorite writers
i've been listening to the arctic monkeys a lot recently, more than i have in my early twenties. for sure, aging has had an effect on that for reasons i can say now and later.
for now, i've grown fond of their discography ever since i gave "tranquility base hotel & casino" a listen. i'd have to check my listening archive for exact dates, but if i had to guess, it was summer 2024.
alex turner is an excellent lyricist. this man is an admitted cinephile and reader, and i love that for him, because it shows in his music, but especially because it shows in this album. it's remarkable, to say the very least. the visuals for this album alone will push me to finally finish stanley kubrick's "2001: a space odyssey." i was partially inspired to watch ridley scott's "bladerunner" because of alex. he croons in "star treatment," one of my favorites on the album, "what do you mean you've never seen 'bladerunner'?" with a despondency that i find myself miming while listening.
i'm particularly drawn to his imaginal approach to love and quarrels. to me, this shows up at its most playful on the album, "humbug."
from the track "crying lightning":
The next time that I caught my own reflection
It was on its way to meet you
Thinking of excuses to postpone
You never looked like yourself from the side
But your profile could not hide
The fact you knew I was approaching your throne
With folded arms you occupied the bench like toothache
Stood and puffed your chest out like you'd never lost a war
god. the last line is such an earworm. and i can see this, i know this all too well, the significant other with a biblical stubbornness. i really know how to pick them, but my hot take is that conflict is good, actually1. conflict is what separates something fickle from something serious.
from the track, "the fire and the thud":
The day after you stole my heart
Everything I touched told me
It would be better shared with you, with you
And now you're hiding in my soup
And this book reveals your face
seeing that person in even the most mundane of things-- okay, so i'm a romantic at heart. i love romance. i'm guilty of romanticizing. i know anyone reading this, as chance would have it, had a specific someone come to mine reading "that person," myself included. if i see "someone" everywhere, well, they've gotten my attention for sure.
i could go on, really. in this album alone, alex's words touch on desire, long distance, frustration, and betrayal with a cohesion i haven't encountered often.
as of 2/21, i expanded on this after mulling over it enough.↩