Okay, on Tricky's second album, he's got a song nestled in there called "Poems," and it's a blurry, red nightmare you can't escape.
It was a week of perpetual rain, and in Los Angeles that creates a powerful atmosphere. It's a city that will never be adjusted to rainfall. In my opinion, LA changes in the rain.
Nick and I were in my car driving home, and I was gazing at my windshield wipers slice the steadily billowing rain. For the most part, it was a quiet day, with tacit, comfortable communication. It's a paradox isn't it—the harsher the rain, the more quietly the time passes. Suddenly, he looks at me:
"Dude," he insists, "Nearly God is really good, but Poems..." He trails off because he's trying to convey too much at once. "Just listen to it," he says, so he finds the song on his iPod and it begins to play.
Now, I'm watching the wipers sway, his eyes are closed, the swarm of taillights in the foreground are enlarged, red, distorted——
I confide to anything/so I have to hide from everything
Everybody wants a piece of me/rinse the origin and cease to be...
I feel that this song shook me intrinsically, viscerally, etc. In my life's timeline those were days of heavy brooding, and the song's tone vibrated at the same frequency of my pluvial teenage ruminations. It had to happen, I had to hear this song when I did. I don't even have the slightest idea as to what it's about. All I know is that, for me, this song will always be the rain in cadaverous Los Angeles.