DEMONS DANCE ALONE
Album
| I. Tongue |
 |
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II. Demons Dance
Alone |
On September 11, 2001, the Residents were on the Icky Flix tour. News of the disasters reached the group as they rode a bus somewhere in Europe. Unable to reach their loved ones or to receive anything more than secondhand news of events back home, the Residents found themselves where all Americans were that day: neck-deep in grief, vulnerability, and uncertainty. As was par for the course, they threw themselves into their art, creating Demons Dance Alone out of their feelings on 9/11. The press release announcing the album warned that it was "quite a different side of the Residents."
A "Deluxe" version of Demons Dance Alone was available through RalphAmerica. It contained a second CD of outtakes and alternate versions.
Since the Demons Dance Alone release coincided with the Residents' 30th Anniversary, they launched a concert tour of the U.S. and Europe that served as both a Demons production and an anniversary celebration.
RATING: 10
When I was five or six, my mother wanted to write me a story about herself after the Kennedy assassination—not about the event itself, but about how she felt in the aftermath. The story never materialized, because I wasn't interested; grief and vulnerability aren't things you can communicate to kindergarteners. But with all love and respect to my mom, a wonderful writer, no story could ever explore those feelings the way Demons Dance Alone does.
Demons is an abstraction; don't look for elegies to the World Trade Center (get Springsteen's wonderful The Rising for that). It's a deductive essay about pain, helplessness, and, above all, vulnerability. Different kinds, different situations, different people. They're divided into categories, but tied back together by the story of a man called "Tongue": every woman he falls in love with wastes away and dies. Get the idea?
Actually, Demons is special because, while it IS still about ideas, it's also about people. And those aren't separate subjects; I mean, how do you externalize the idea of mourning? Even the Metaphors, which lemme tell ya are damned opaque, are touchingly human. When the Singer tells you "Ol' Tongue is in love again," your heart goes into your stomach. And while you won't know what to do with the little girl's odd hopefulness in "Make Me Moo," you'll join her in it. See if you don't.
There are funny parts, too: how somber can an album be with a track called "Honey Bear"? And the music itself is lovely. Melodic, and—dare I say?—accessible. You can easily enjoy "The Weatherman," or "My Brother Paul," or (my favorite) "Mr. Wonderful." Guitar is back in the Residents' music, sounding Snakey, but there's also a lot of trumpet that works magic. ("Ghost Child" isn't funny or pretty, but neither is the subject matter.)
The album/essay funnels into a single conclusion: Demons Dance Alone. What that means is entirely up to you, which is true of the entire album. The liner notes tell you a big part of it, but it's not really that simple. Masterpieces never are.