74th Favorite: Nothing’s Shocking, by Jane’s Addiction

Nothing’s Shocking. Jane’s Addiction
1988, Sire. Producer: Dave Jerden, Perry Farrell
Purchased: ca. 1991.

IN A NUTSHELL – Hard-to-classify hard rock. Tribal rhythms, 80s guitar hero pyrotechnics, and vocals that sometimes sound like they come from a different universe combine to form an interesting and entertaining collection.

WOULD BE HIGHER IF – I’m not doing “W.B.H.I.” any longer. Basically, they’d all be higher if I liked them more!
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If I had to choose one great lesson I have learned in life, one truth whose derivation was hard-earned and challenging; a single fact obscured, perhaps, by the larger objectives of daily living, but whose immense value nonetheless has been evident over the course of a lifetime; just one entry on Life 101’s Grand Syllabus, the immeasurable merit of which, on my deathbed, I’d entreat my children and my children’s children (etc.) to understand fully and well, it is this:

If a movie director fucks up the meaning of a philosopher’s quote, you still might hear something pretty worthwhile anyway.

I know. Cliché.

I have been a quintessential “struggling artist” for most of my adult life, so in addition to (a) being highly critical of any work by anyone else, and (b) maintaining a complete mental list of how others – family, friends, fellow artists (especially) – have conspired to block my efforts toward a thriving career, I am also (c) quite jealous of the good fortune of anyone who has been successful[ref]By “successful,” I mean anyone slightly more successful than myself, by any measure whatsoever. One more dollar earned, one more cool gig, one more published piece.[/ref] in The Arts. It is natural, then, that I would attach the blame for misunderstanding a quote to the Big Movie Director as opposed to myself. But maybe I misunderstood what the Movie Director was saying.

The Movie Director in question is Richard Linklater, a familiar name among movie fans, whose films include titles well-known even among casual movie fans. [ref]His hilarious Jack Black vehicle School of Rock is most likely playing this very second on VH1 or Comedy Central or one of those movie channels that seem to pop up like dandelions among the front lawn of my Verizon channel guide every Spring.[/ref] Among his best-loved films are the trilogy of “Before …” films: Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight. I haven’t seen these films, but I know they feature Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as a couple whose story is told over three films made over 20 years. (A neat trick that Linklater modified in the 12-year making of his celebrated film, Boyhood, in 2014.)

The philosopher in question is Friedrich Nietzsche, no doubt a top-ten all-time philosopher. I know he’s Top Ten because I know diddly squat about philosophy and philosophers, and if you asked me to name 10, he’d be one I’d name[ref]Quick check: Aristotle, Plato, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Camus, Schopenhauer, Kant, Donne … hmm I guess he’s actually top eight …[/ref]. He’d also be one of the few I know anything about, as I recall some teacher somewhere (probably in the lone Philosophy class I took in college) telling our class that Nietzsche wasn’t a Nazi at all (as he’s often credited), but that the Nazis had misinterpreted and co-opted him. Also, I remember he’s the one who said, “God is dead,” which actually turns out to be relevant to album #74.

So, anyway, at some point in 1995 I was reading an article in Rolling Stone magazine about the handsome, multi-talented young movie star Ethan Hawke, starring at the time in the newly released Before Sunrise. In the article, Linklater speaks about what the film – a movie described in the piece as “essentially a two hour conversation” between a couple – is meant to be about.

But you take an intuitive leap with people. It’s like ‘Why not?’ Little leaps of faith, that’s the microcosm of the movie. What does Nietzsche say? ‘When you say yes to a moment, you say yes to all of existence.’ There’s something optimistic about that.

Now, dear reader, think of all the magazine articles you’ve ever read, of all the novels you’ve ever read, the non-fiction books you’ve ever read, even the backs of cereal boxes and tweets from celebs and FB posts from acquaintances of friends’ relatives that somehow show up in your feed. Consider your reading history and try to pick out a tidbit that has stuck with you the longest, or that has inspired you deeply.

Would it shock you to learn that you had it wrong? Let’s say you’d based life-decisions on that reading but found out later you’d interpreted it incorrectly, would it change your opinion of your life’s choices? Would you do anything differently? Would it matter?

As I mentioned earlier, I know diddly squat about philosophy. The only philosopher I can quote verbatim is the rocket-fuelled Spinal Tap keyboardist Vyv Savage.

That being said, I have always associated Album #74 with what I understood to be a quote from Nietzsche. In my brain, the quote was “Say yes to one thing, and you say yes to everything.” That’s how the Nietzsche quote, as quoted by Linklater, lived on in my brain. That’s what I thought those walrus mustachioed lips had uttered.

I was not quite thirty when I read the quote, and as a person from a rather reserved family, who grew up in a community that did everything it could to keep its denizens from being themselves or trying new things, but who nonetheless felt a need to go out and pursue as many dreams as possible, the quote seemed to substantiate my life decisions to that point (e.g., joining a band and writing songs, leaving my small town, moving 3000 miles away, doing stand-up comedy, acting, etc).

“Say yes to one thing, and you say yes to everything.” To me, that “quote” meant that anytime a yes/no decision was required of me, I had to consider the fact that saying “no” was a wall. Saying “yes” was an entryway.

As is the case with all entryways, there are both known and unknown experiences on the other side of a door. Sometimes the best thing about an entryway is the fact that it has a door and a lock and so whatever is on the other side will stay over there, and you won’t have to go deal with it. Stuff that, sure, you won’t experience first hand, and so you may not fully understand it, but that’s not always a bad thing. It’s why people don’t break INTO penitentiaries[ref]Of course, this isn’t a great example, as there are many good souls who DO willingly enter prisons to perform amazing acts of kindness and grace for the people inside. But at its basic level, as of 5:37 a.m., it’s a pretty good metaphor.[/ref].

But for most decisions in life, when presented with the choice of a wall or an entryway, I’ve found I’d rather open the door and walk through. Finding a wall is almost always frustrating, whereas opening a door is always revealing, a presentation of options, paths, experiences … a feast for a curious mind. Say “yes” to opening a door, and you say “yes” to everything that is beyond it. “Say yes to one thing, and you say yes to everything.”

I have tried to say “yes” as often as possible in life.

I recall, soon after coming across this tidbit, explaining it to a friend. “It’s a quote by Nietzsche,” I said. “Say yes to one thing, and you say yes to everything!”

“Wow,” she said. “That sounds pretty positive for Nietzsche. I thought he was all about how terrible life is?”

“Geez, I don’t know,” I (most likely) said. “I saw it in a magazine. It sounded cool. They said it was Nietzsche.”

I didn’t give its attribution much thought. I just used it as a guide when life decisions popped up. I’m only going to be on Earth a short time – I might as well say yes to as much of it as I can[ref]While, of course, hurting as few other people as I can. And (I hope) getting ripped off by scammers as little as possible.[/ref]
My love of Nothing’s Shocking, by Jane’s Addiction, is bound tightly to a “say yes” experience I had several years before I knew who Richard Linklater was. I knew I had to write about it, so as I began to write this piece, I did a little research into my (second) favorite Nietzschian quote.

So here’s why you can trust mostly nothing I’ve ever written about my life experiences over the past 26 albums: I began my quest for facts about this anecdote – the one that’s seemed so important to me over the past 20 years – by searching for a RADIO INTERVIEW with JOHNNY DEPP in which he quoted Nietzsche!! I was sure this was where I had heard my “favorite Nietzsche quote.”

First I found a few references to the actual quote and its interpretation. Often referred to (I now have learned) as “the Nietzschean affirmation,” the idea appeared in Nietzsche’s book Will to Power[ref]Not to be confused with the shameless one-hit-wonder duo that mashed up Lynyrd Skynyrd and Peter Frampton in 1988.[/ref], and is quoted here from a 1967 translation by Walter Kauffman and R.J. Hollingdale:

If we affirm one single moment, we thus affirm not only ourselves but all existence. For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event—and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed.

Kind of a mouthful. He goes on and on like that. !Snore! I know, right? But reading a little bit more (just a little) and thinking about it, I think I now understand[ref]Inasmuch as anyone can claim to “understand” the writings of a person considered to be one of the most brilliant thinkers in Western philosophy after simply scanning Wikipedia and another website or two.[/ref] that the idea he discusses here is really about living in the moment and appreciating that – for good or for bad – everything (truly everything, as the words “all eternity” imply) has come together to bring us to the point we are at now, and the only way to experience joy in life is to love and accept everything about life – the pleasure, the pain, the struggle, the wonder – at this very instant. So by “saying yes” to this moment right now (sort of), we are in fact “saying yes” to everything (sort of.)

My main problem with this philosophy is that it forces us to accept (not to mention love) not only that hit song by the band named Will to Power, but also the male singer’s teeth and hair, (skip to 1:30 in that link) all of which have, apparently, helped bring us to where we are today at this very moment.

My secondary problem with this philosophy is that it IS NOT “Say yes to one thing, and you say yes to everything.” Which – as stated previously – has ONLY been the MAIN GUIDING IDEA around which I’ve BUILT MY ENTIRE ADULT LIFE.

Don’t worry we’ll get to the album. Please continue to love and accept this very moment.

So, after hearing that the philosophy was fucked up, I immediately started this piece by bashing Johnny Depp for being so dumb. I went looking for the radio program on which I heard him say it, but I found nothing. So I kept googling and refining searches until eventually I landed on this.

“AHA!!” I thought, “it was Ethan Hawke who was the pretty boy mangling Nietzsche!” No problem – I can just find+replace “Johnny Depp” with “Ethan Hawke,” problem solved. Then I read the article, for old times sake – to see just how stupid this handsome young fool was – and found that it was Linklater who said it, after all. At which time I began to love and accept that very moment, and my own faulty memory, because it was all part of the eternity that led me to be writing these words.

[captionpix imgsrc=”https://100favealbums.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/johnny-depp-1.jpg” captiontext=”This picture of Johnny Depp is all that remains from an early draft of this post in which I blamed him for mangling Nietzsche and screwing up my Life’s Guiding Principle”]

Clearly this post is already too long for me to begin to get into the existential crisis engendered by leading one’s life according to a non-existent philosophy. However, I can say this: I think I’ll stick with it. It’s seemed to work pretty well so far. It helped me become a fan of Album #74, Nothing’s Shocking, a good 6 years before I ever read the words “When you say yes to a moment, you say yes to all of existence.”

You see, sometime in the winter of ’89-90, I was a recently-graduated Biology Education graduate living with my parents in the house I grew up in, waiting for my Pennsylvania State Teaching License to come through so I could wade into the teaching career pool[ref]Actually, plunge head-first into the cold, murky, student-shark-infested waters of the deep end of the pool: SUBSTITUTE teaching.[/ref]. In the meantime, I had taken a job at a pizza shop, delivering pizzas.

One chilly afternoon, having parked my car after delivering the lunch-rush pies and subs, I was walking along Seventh St., back to the shop when I spotted a guy about thirty yards away walking towards me. In a step or two I recognized him. It was a young man named Cary, and he hadn’t recognized me yet.

Cary (who is nowadays a very successful folk-singer in France) had been two years behind me in high school, played trumpet in the marching band (not low brass, like my trombone, but brass nonetheless), and had been friends with my first-ever girlfriend, V. I didn’t dislike him, but he had always been an extroverted, talkative, smiley guy, and my weird Pennsylvania Dutch upbringing[ref]Cary’s family was NOT PA Dutch, but had moved to the region.[/ref] caused me to immediately be suspicious of such people. I hadn’t seen him in the 4 plus years since I’d graduated high school, but still my initial reaction was to nonchalantly cut across the street and continue on my way to avoid his friendly bullshit.

But for some reason I thought, “Oh, don’t be silly. You’re supposed to be an adult, and adults stop and chat and be cordial.”

So I said “Yes” to spending two minutes with Cary.

In our brief conversation (during which I remember liking that he was so friendly) I learned he was a guitar player who sang in a band, and that they wrote their own songs. I said I played bass, and he said we should jam sometime. I gave him my number.

The doorway of saying hello to Cary led into a vast room of increasingly interesting doorways I also opened by saying, “Yes.” I eventually joined his band, helped write and record songs, played in cool clubs around the Mid-Atlantic region, rethought my perception of people in the world, moved to San Francisco, met my wife, etc. etc. etc. I said yes to one thing, and so said yes to everything.

Including Jane’s Addiction’s Nothing’s Shocking. You see, one of the first times Cary and I got together, in his tiny apartment with a shared bathroom down the hall, he said to me, “Do you like Jane’s Addiction?” I had read about them in Rolling Stone, but – having to that point remained staunchly anti-any-music-produced-after-1979 – I hadn’t heard their music. He told me, “They’re so good. You should listen to them.”

Eventually, as our friendship grew, I listened to a lot of music that, had I never said hello, I otherwise might have never heard. But Jane’s Addiction was the first band he mentioned when we got together to jam, and so it sticks in my brain as the first thing I stumbled upon when I said “yes” to Cary.

The album is not too dissimilar from Appetite for Destruction, by Guns ‘n Roses,
which came out just the year before Nothing’s Shocking. But whereas Appetite is kind of a heavy metal album with definite punk rock influences, Shocking is more of an alternative rock album with definite heavy metal influences.

These albums are very similar, but different. They’re like siblings, the George and Ken Brett of late 80s rock, with one far more successful than the other, but both extremely good.

Jane’s Addiction is led by frontman/agitator and entrepreneur Perry Farrell. And his vocals are distinctive and interesting throughout, from the very first two songs, which have always seemed like one long song to me: “Up the Beach/Ocean Size:”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0-nB9gufFE

“Up the Beach” displays guitarist Dave Navarro’s 80’s Guitar God ambitions alongside a slow groove provided by rhythm section Stephen Perkins (drums) and Eric A. (bass). Navarro doesn’t play as fast as some of the fret-tapping, fire-handed Big Hairs of the era, but with much feeling and soul. Farrell’s vocals are distorted and spooky – a technique used throughout Nothing’s Shocking. Just as guitarists use pedals and electronics to shape their sound into something recognizably guitar, but different, Farrell shapes his vocals. The effect gives the band a unique sound, and makes a listener wonder, “Why didn’t anybody do this in the first thirty years of rock music?”[ref]Okay, I’m sure SOMEONE did, but it sounds pretty novel in this record.[/ref]

“Ocean Size” begins (3:01) with a subtle acoustic guitar, a bit of misdirection for the listener that is violently knocked aside by Farrell’s screeching, echoing “Three! Four!” “Ocean Size” is a riff rocker, fairly straightforward, but the clarity of the bass and drums, coupled with the vocal sounds, and subtle background harmonies, signal the album is going to be different. Navarro definitely continues the guitar heroics with some 80s shredding beginning at 5:10 and again at 6:44. The song starts and stops and features what will also be a signature on the album: Farrell’s lyrics that are sometimes deep and sometimes goofy, but always unexpected. It’s hard to think of another album in which the first two songs better set the table for what’s to come. The songs don’t all sound the same, but if you find the first two songs annoying, you probably won’t enjoy the rest.[ref]But I really think you should try. I’m here to help.[/ref]

“Had a Dad” follows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3K8VdpNydc

It opens with rapid-fire drums, and you should keep listening to the drums throughout. Stephen Perkins is an excellent drummer, throwing in odd beats and giving Jane’s Addiction a sort of funky flavor that helps keep them from sounding too Heavy Metal. For me, his drumming co-stars with Farrell’s vocals on the album. This song was one of the first Alternative songs of the era to address a familiar theme for 70s kids: the lack of a father. From Nirvana to Everclear, many bands of the 90s took on the topic, whether indirectly or head-on. Farrell, of course, takes it on sideways, with a direct statement of loss, then an oblique reference to his lost father as god (“if you see my dad/tell him my brothers/have all gone mad/and beating on each other” at 1:25). After another Guitar-Hero burst from Navarro, it’s repeated, leading to the very Nietzsche-an statement “God is Dead!” If you consider the hair-metal era that this album came out in, it’s easy to see why this music confused the record labels and why it wasn’t an immediate smash hit[ref]It peaked at #103 on the albums chart.[/ref]. With the funky drumming and bass, the weird lyrics and vocal effects, the record execs figured the excellent guitar shredding by Navarro was not enough to pull listeners’ ears away from White Snake or Bon Jovi, so the album was buried. (Here’s a rare clip of the band playing an early version of the song a few years before the album was released.)

Song four, “Ted, Just Admit It,” is the tour de force on the album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJLW0Uf9SlA

The song’s title refers to serial killer Ted Bundy, whose voice is heard at the beginning. The song’s lyrics, an indictment of TV-obsessed culture and the boundaries it pushes, are the source of the album title. It is a great song, with multiple themes and melodies, multiple tempos, and some cool bass guitar work by Eric Avery, particularly coupled with Perkins’s tribal drumming. Avery doesn’t play intricate lines, but what he plays sounds cool and integral to the song, similar to how the lines of U2’s Adam Clayton fit into their songs[ref]He’s also the source of much inter-band strife, it seems, and has been their “former bass player” for years now.[/ref].

The bass and drums of Avery and Perkins are again featured on “Standing in the Shower Thinking,” which is about Standing. In the Shower. And thinking.

Navarro shines as well on this song, shredding better than his poofy-haired counterparts in other bands of the day. This song reminds me of how far ahead of the times they were, with their interesting rhythms and strange vocals. It’s the same for “Mountain Song,” as well, a straight-ahead rocker built around a simple bass riff.

It’s such a rocking, heavy, kick-ass tune. But what was passing for hard rock in August, 1988, was late-era Def Leppard. America’s ears weren’t ready.

Neither were they ready for my favorite song on the album, a romantic, slow song that blows contemporaneous hair-band “power ballads” – which were very much in their heyday – out of the water. The song is “Summertime Rolls,” and it is sweet and salty, like everyone’s favorite treats.

It opens with a bass line so quiet that it can be missed if you’re not listening for it. It continues throughout the song, creating a subtle groove with Perkins’s cymbals and drums, a groove that turns more persistent around 3:25, when the band kicks things up a notch. The vocals throughout are strange and distorted, with harmonies that sound incongruous, but somehow work perfectly. Navarro’s guitar sounds Middle Eastern, and lazy and warm – just like a summer day. The lyrics tell of lazy summer days, young love, acting goofy and feeling “so, so serious” about your boyfriend or girlfriend. The words conjure feelings without explicitly describing them, a common trait of great lyricists, I think. Back to my original story of saying “yes” to talking with Cary, this song was one of the first I learned when I joined his band, and we covered it regularly. It builds beautifully, to a satisfying end. It’s a song that clearly demonstrates that this band ain’t your typical late 80s guitar act.

“Idiots Rule” is a track with very cool horns, played by the very cool duo of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist Flea[ref]Credited under his actual name, Michael Balzary.[/ref], on trumpet, and Fishbone’s Angelo Moore on sax. “Pigs in Zen” is a grinding riff rocker, whose lyrics include some of Cary’s favorite sayings of the day: “Some people should die. That’s just unconscious knowledge!” and “I’m in the midst of a trauma!” Both songs are excellent hard rock numbers by this hard-to-classify band.

I probably must mention the song “Jane Says,” as well, as it’s one of the band’s most popular. But to me it sounds like a song by someone else. It’s repetitive, with steel drums that sound out of place, as if included at the insistence of some Record Company BigShot. And while the lyrics do paint a compassionate picture of a sad person, I’ve now heard it so many times I can’t muster much concern for Jane any longer. I haven’t bothered to look for her wig in years.

But her wig is part of her, and part of “Jane Says,” which is part of Nothing’s Shocking. And so, according to Nietzsche, for real, I must accept her wig as part of the greater Everything that has made me say “yes!” to life. And according to some movie director, I should say “yes” to her wig, and see if the door that wig opens has something good waiting on the other side.

Either way, I’ve said “yes” to Nothing’s Shocking, and I’ll keep saying “yes” to as much of life as I can. It’s worked out pretty well for me.

TRACK LISTING
Up the Beach
Ocean Size
Had a Dad
Ted, Just Admit It …
Standing in the Shower Thinking
Summertime Rolls
Mountain Song
Idiots Rule
Jane Says
Thank You, Boys
Pigs in Zen