Evenflow,
Thoughts arrive like butterflies
Oh, he don’t know
So he chases them away.
Nobody could have expressed our angst better. Not the way Pearl Jam and the grunge music of our generation made whatever absurdity we felt less shapeless. We were on the way to the beach, aboard the bus to Batangas and I was reading Oscar Wao with the grunge playlist plugged in. I heard Eddie Vedder's deep yet screechy voice accompanied by guitar distortion. The lyrics were powerful and furious. With its hidden meanings, it made me understand why the world worked in wayward ways. It made all the Emo music of this generation seem sissy and just cretinous. We didn’t have Google yet back then, but we understood.
Thoughts arrive like butterflies
Oh, he don’t know
So he chases them away.
Nobody could have expressed our angst better. Not the way Pearl Jam and the grunge music of our generation made whatever absurdity we felt less shapeless. We were on the way to the beach, aboard the bus to Batangas and I was reading Oscar Wao with the grunge playlist plugged in. I heard Eddie Vedder's deep yet screechy voice accompanied by guitar distortion. The lyrics were powerful and furious. With its hidden meanings, it made me understand why the world worked in wayward ways. It made all the Emo music of this generation seem sissy and just cretinous. We didn’t have Google yet back then, but we understood.
And precisely because I understood, I protested. I was young and ready to make world spin in idealized directions. I wanted to change the world’s wayward ways. And then the music grew too loud. I got drunk silly, chased girls, and youth disappeared. I grew up, silencing myself.
Hearing this again now, I understood. I am just quietly untamed.
