Titus Andronicus

For the past week, I've really only listened to two albums on repeat. They are the new Manchester Orchestra album, Mean Everything to Nothing, and the self-titled album by Titus Andronicus.

While I was trying to figure out why I couldn't stop listening to both bands, I started to realize the similarities. Both singers are my age, but feel worn out by the world. While taking different approaches, both TA and MO discuss crises of faith, existentialism, and finding their places in the world. Also, both bands put on amazing live shows and sound best cranked up very loud.

Here are some lyrics by Titus Andronicus that have provoked some thought:

My Time Outside the Womb

"The first thing you see is the light.
Then, you focus on a man in a mask with a knife
as he cuts you away from everything you thought you knew about life.

And now you’re in your mother’s arms, wrinkled and wet.
You’re gonna spend the rest of your life trying to hard to forget
that you met the world naked and screaming, and that’s how you’ll leave it"

No Future

“If you’re weary, I don’t mind sharing the load,
just keep me some company on the road.
All I’ve got is a bottle that I ought to leave alone,
but it’s the only thing that I can call my own.

So I’m saying goodbye, and no, I won’t forget to write.
It’s just been too long racing towards a yellow light,
and I know that I say this every night,
but I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired of life”

“Because I’ve been waiting all year for the temperature to drop,
but now I’ve got a fever and I don’t know how to make it stop."

Fear and Loathing in Mahwah, NJ

"Now the way we hold each other so tight
would look more like a noose if held up to the light
because we betray each other in dreams every night."

Albert Camus

“But underneath it all, there is an apathetic heart of gold"

“Because the more we think, the less it all makes sense,
tonight we will drink to our general indifference.”

Upon Viewing Brueghel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

"I was born into self-actualization,
I knew exactly who I was,
but I never got my chance to be young."

Titus Andronicus

"Throw my guitar down on the floor.
No one cares what I’ve got to say anymore.
I didn’t come here to be damned with faint praise.
I’ll write my masterpiece some other day.

Fuck everything, fuck me.

I’m repeating myself again.
Innovation, I leave to smarter men.
Pretty melodies don’t fall out of the air for me;
I’ve got to steal them from somewhere."