POZ Track-By-Track: You, Me & Everyone We Know - I Wish More People Gave A Shit
You, Me & Everyone We Know released I Wish More People Gave A Shit last week, and it’s turning out to be a new favorite for fans. PropertyOfZack was stoked to have Ben Liebsch do a Track-By-Track feature for the EP for us today, and he’s dissected the EP more than any band ever has for us. Check out the Track-By-Track below!
Record titles have always tended to reveal themselves to me. I hear or see a phrase that so perfectly sums what i am trying to say with a set of songs that I am compelled in that instant to name a record. This time it was Bradley Scott Walden from Squid The Whale, a band that has played a bigger part in me continuing on with music than i can ever make clear, that shouted to the world via twitter one night a simple phrase “i wish more people gave a shit.” I don’t know what it meant to Bradley. Come to think of it, i haven’t asked. It spoke to me in a pretty deep way. Making the statement “I wish more people gave a shit” (hopefully) causes a series of thoughts that go something like this:
Do i give a shit?
I DO give a shit.
What do i give a shit about?
OR you don’t give a shit. To be honest, i don’t know what is worse. Somehow who doesn’t care or someone like me who does care but more often than not submits to years of conditioning that leave me dependent on corporate comforts. Purity is impossible though so what is the point of doing anything. Unless you are living in the woods in a third world country all efforts to show you care have become co-opted self pattings on the back to form some semblance of an identity in a world of advertising that DEMANDS you pick a team, any team. A conversation I had two days ago while in line at a deli:
Stranger: Hey man, are you sure you don’t want a regular soda?
Me: No, i’m alright.
Stranger: Alright, but you might be getting some aspartame in that.
Nevermind that the clothes you are wearing were made in third world countries and off-gas chemicals into the air for you and everyone around to breathe or the amount of harmful crap in the ice and the cup you are drinking from currently, along with the myriad of loud machines roaring by outside making you subconciously anxious ALL THE TIME, or the fact that we can’t even comprehend the amount of food waste (food that whoever made our shirts could REALLY use) inherent in the operation of this kind of business, or the fact that advertising has conditioned me and those around me to feel like I shouldn’t have a regular soda because I am and/or feel “fat” and “ugly” in comparison to the thinnest, most physically fit, and attractive 5% of the world’s population. Forget the dioxin in the water, the pollution in the air, the plastic in my blood. You thought you were doing me a favor, that really only served to make you feel better about yourself, by reminding me that there is aspartame in diet soda.
This whole record would be the definition of preachy hypocrisy if I didn’t fully disclose here and many time throughout the songs that I am also a part of the problem. These songs are about hypocrisy I see in myself and the world around and the struggle and stress we go through in the almost pointless effort to be a little less so. I want to repeat this before you read on: I AM NO BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE READING THIS. The ways that I do think i’m better or more enlightened on certain issues is more than made for in my laziness and apathy towards other ones. Now let’s get all track by track on this mother:
I’d Contribute More Dead
I’ve read about and have been interested alot of different large scale issues since i first realized at a very young age that there is a futility to existence. Factory farming, consumerism, self worth conditioning through advertising, the effect of technology on our social interactions, american style democracy…I could go on and on. Unfortunately, i couldn’t handle what was a very hard world to live in so I used alcohol as an escape. Sobering up ten years later, I’m not sure if the issues are worse than ever or if we are just now beginning to talk about them. There is often a grey area during a time of illness when you can’t sure if certain symptoms are a sign of getting worse or getting better. I felt compelled at a certain point to start writing about them. Punk and some folk bands have been writing about such topics for years, but the music can be an aquired. As a highly watered down version of my idols, I feel like i have an opportunity as a more accessible band to talk about some things that may reach a slightly more mainstream audience. So i started doing that with this song. I’m going to do this a little differently since i cover so much:
Yes! Now I’ve a book and a couple of old folks I look forward look up on google or at the library racks to read
