An Oozing Wound
Sonic Youth - Schizophrenia
Hello internet pals of music. Today’s song is taken from their (possibly best) album, Sister.
On our living room wall, behind the couch, was a giant subway sized promo poster for Sister. Flanking it was a Butthole Surfers flyer picturing a weeping ant-woman, in hues of blue and purple. It said Experience the Nightmare on it.
Losing it. That is a nightmare. I had a step-sister once. She was diagnosed schizophrenic. I wasn’t around when things got bad, I only remember increasingly reckless choices. I thought she was just rebellious. Her story didn’t end well. It’s not something I like to talk about.
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Sonic Youth, and the early 90s in general fill me with a strange dread. It’s the anxiety of slipping over the edge. I know a lot of the moments Kim Gordon reflects in how she discusses her California childhood in her book, Girl in a Band: a boring sprawl covering up a violent ennui.
Sonic Youth made some great music although I think they stopped being challenging the longer they went on, as well as the more that the violence of the American suburban lie came to live on the surface. Maybe Sonic Youth is more important as art than it is as music, having painted such a complex portrait of a particular American psyche.
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