“I’m not writing another one. I refuse.” – Me, before writing another essay about a Geese song. It’s just that I was tossing and turning. Sleepless. Internally harangued. And that’s not a word I use lightly, or ever. The following essay originally appeared in Geesezine Vol 2 alongside beautiful fanart, photographs from Geese’s Getting Killed tour, and other editorials. It has been reformatted here for ease of reading. Thank you!
He may say that real love is a nail in the wall
And that’s how a lot of assholes feel
But that’s not how I feel at all.
When I was in college we had this drawing professor whose mood you could never guess. He’d always talk about our damn phones and how we’d never make meaningful art so long as they lurked nearby. One day he came to class with a black garbage bag in one hand, and nails and a hammer in the other. He plopped the bag on the table in the center of the room, and gloveless, pulled out two dead crows.
“Good morning.”
He took one of the birds and nailed a dark wing to the white wall. Next wing. He left the other bird on the table, tossing the hammer by its side.
“Draw that.”
The class let out a collective sigh and slid from our seats, charcoal and sketchbooks in hand. Apparently, that morning our professor was enjoying the sunshine with a mug of hot coffee when lo and behold, the crows were right there lying limp in his yard, dead. How bizarre, he thought. The whole class thought the same thing plus a little extra. This old man killed two birds just to bring to class.
For most people, a nail in the wall is used for calendars, artwork, lights, etc. You don’t see it again until you’re moving or redecorating, and you don’t hang art in a place you’re going to leave soon. You poke holes to make a home. Or to remind a bunch of freshmen of your antics.
So, if a nail in the wall is what it means to make a home,
and that’s what people think real love is,
but that’s not what the speaker believes,
then the speaker does not believe making a home with someone is what real love is.
But if making a home is not what real love is, then what is? And what kind of love is he referring to? Familial, romantic, deep friendship? You can make a home with all three. You can also love these people deeply from across the world.
The speaker doesn’t offer a different definition of real love in this song, but the lyrics suggest “our love” is defined by thinking and time. If their love was only half real, then the part that was missing was the nail in the wall. The home. The rest we can assume to be present: the experience of time (good times and bad times happen with longevity), and thinking to the point of exhaustion (Always in the back of my mind / And the front of my mind too.)
And what about the math? If it’s half real and that’s half true, then is he being 25% honest? You might say, “Listen lady, it’s not that deep. The lyrics are just whatever nonsense Cameron Winter thinks of in the moment.” And sure, at first glance this song seems like it came from a writer who just wanted to play with language. The ambiguous math, the play on words, its general absurdity. And yet the more I dig, the further I get from the character’s final sentiment, I’ve got no more thinking to do.
My charcoal sketches turned out pretty well. Thin lines woven around thick ones, the darkest powder black against the newsprint, sharp beak. I stood back from my drawing and frowned. Wings spread, feet dangling. Somehow I had created Crow Jesus.
If you want me to pay my taxes / You’d better come over with a crucifix / You’re gonna have to nail me down
[Hey, that’s a different song!] Dying for our sins, dying for our art, the violence of a nail to keep a lover grounded. Put a dead bird to use and kill a man for his money. Tale as old as time. And the trouble continues. Who is “He”?
Unfortunately, we can’t tell why “He” is capitalized because each time “He” is mentioned, it’s at the beginning of a line. So we don’t know if the capitalization is due to form or if it refers to God. But because the rest of the album is peppered with religious symbols, it’s probably God. In which case, the speaker is not only criticizing “how a lot of assholes feel” about love, but also what God may say about it.
Perhaps I’ve been too stuck on the “wall” part of it. A crucifix is not a wall. But if he’s twisting metaphors, then does the speaker suggest through iconography that Jesus, nailed to a wall for our sins, was not actually enacting real love? That sacrifice for another is not real love? How deep does this all go? [Real] love is mysterious, honey, I’m working the case. Speculation at best.
So this song has a lot of meaning but also makes no sense. And dammit if that isn’t love, I don’t know what is. Real love can be experienced from a distance, though if it only exists in your mind, you resign your heart to thought experiments. And while we come from different teachers, I think we can agree that sometimes you gotta behold what others call wrong or “wildly unsanitary” and feel its importance.
With Love,
Eva
Related Reading:
With Geese As Our Witness: An Analysis of “Taxes”
Getting Killed by Boxes: Unpacking with Geese
Sources: Geese, Half Real, Taxes, Mysterious Love
