“Sometimes I don’t know/ what to think about the world/ when this guy is burning up in the street/ with gasoline /and the flames show no mercy/ so when you need /some one to talk to you/ it doesn’t always work/ the way its supposed to/ you can love yer brain/ even when it slips/ down the drain”

I have been into the Flaming Lips since their first complete album, Here It Is! came out in 1986.  I used to play it quite often during my radio show in college.  Back then,  you either loved them or they annoyed you to the point of jumping out of your skin (or at least some people would react that way).  They were loud, abrasive, surreal, psychedelic, manic and discordant but there was this undeniable sincerity to what they did . . . and ironic humour.

When they came out with their second album, Oh My Gawd!!! The Flaming Lips I well and truly flipped.  I really loved the album but the one song that stood out to me was “Love Yer Brain.”  It had been several years since I heard this song but recently my mind gravitated to it as I watch the U.S. seem to lose its mind with hatred during this presidential campaign.  The world has always been a crazy place but it seems to try to top itself with every generation.  It is enough to make you despair.  But there is always art and entertainment (and I don’t mean A&E)*.

Most people turn to escapism.  I admit I do turn to it from time to time, but I mostly like to face what I’m feeling (embrace or challenge it).  It’s not always the most comfortable or productive way but I find it better than sleepwalking or shouting at people.  Imagination and humour I find are two of the best ways of dealing with things.  Most of the time the funniest things are the ones that obliquely deal with the problems at hand. If you had a camera on you in your most frustrating moments you might find them hilarious if they weren’t happening to you at the time. To meditate means to stand outside yourself.  It’s something called perspective.  Use it or lose it.  It’s easy to lose it.  Sometimes I can be an expert at that, as we all can from time to time.

So if you listen to the lyrics of  “Love Yer Brain” you’ll kind of get what I’m talking about.   A lot of people don’t seem to use their imaginations much.  They ingest what other people produce. “I’ll wait for the movie to come out” was an old expression now it seems a way of life.  Let Hollywood make the images for you instead of imagining what the characters would be like.  Stream 20 billion songs into your earbuds while you do 20 billion other things.  It takes too much effort to question things around you including your own assumptions.  Why?  Because we’re overloaded and overstressed.  And it . . . just . . . keeps . . . coming.  Just inventing a story or thinking about absurd possibilities and talking about them could loosen the knots.  Or perhaps just listening to your thoughts or just listening to anything instead of just hearing.  “But a person’s/gotta have somethin’/to keep him from going insane”

There’s always been something genuine and sympathetic about Wayne Coyne’s vocals.  I find them to be a comfort from time to time.