Teens of Denial; Annotated as a Dialectical Bildungsroman (Introduction and Track 1)
In honour of its ten year anniversary, I’d like to share my interpretation of my favourite CSH album. I’ll be releasing it in parts over the next while.
On May 20th, 2016 the Indie Rock outfit released its tenth album, Teens of Denial (TOD). Their first original album recorded in a major label studio, marking a notable departure from their usual lowfi-DIY sound. Subject to critical acclaim upon release, its commercial success seems to overshadow its brilliance. Critics have cited it as revitalizing the indie genre. Sonic quality aside, I’ve yet to encounter any criticism that centres or even recognizes the album’s ingenuity in terms of its philosophical and narrative cogency.
At face value, the album follows its college-age protagonist, Joe, as he is marred by the many growing pains characteristic of contemporary adolescent life. But the album is far more than just a generic collection of adolescent woes. It is a tale of a young man embarking on a hero’s journey! As he struggles to articulate who he is and what he wants from life; sufficed to say affirm it.
If the group’s 2018 (remake) album, Twin Fantasy, centres on the trials and tribulations of loving someone else, Teens of Denial centres on those of loving oneself. Over its 12 tracks, TOD interrogates themes of masculinity, intimacy and identity, in the 21st century; as they often intersect inhibiting life’s affirmation. This is not to say one must be or identify as male to understand or appreciate TOD. Rather, that the tacit implications of masculine socialization play a large part in constituting the many predicaments and contentions Joe finds himself within and within himself. Similar forms of self-effacement cultivated in feminine socialization are equally salient.
Teens of Denial is the apotheosis of the Bildungsroman, generally referred to as a “coming of age” story. With precision I’ve yet to encounter elsewhere, TOD delineates contemporary ailments, and iterations of alienation so many young adults & adolescents face today. Not only is it best understood as a Bildungsroman, but a Dialectical-Bildungsroman at that. Both ideational paradigms are so axiomatic, I believe lyricists Will Toledo, explicitly wrote the album to adhere to them respectively.
First coined in 1819 by Philologist Karl Morgenstern, a Bildungsroman refers to a narrative structure quantified in twofold:
(1.) In virtue of its thematic content, the protagonist, or hero, undergoes a Bildung (German for building) process, resulting in self realization and inner wholeness. The narrative adheres to the following structure:
(i.) Introduction to the hero and their initial (sub-optimal) state.
(ii.) A journey, the departure from home—physical, psychological or spiritual.
(iii.) Loss of innocence. Represented as a crisis of self confrontation.
(iv.) A subsequent struggle for identity.
(v.) Conflict with society—self—other
(vi.) Lastly, a synthesis. A state of completeness, coinciding with the Hero’s return home.
(2.) The effect on the audience. If executed correctly, the audience’s own Bildung process is furthered (more so than other narrative styles). In virtue of the audience’s subjective participation, they are afforded the insights of the hero’s experience as though it was their own.
Bildungsromans can be found scattered amongst the post-enlightenment cannon: Great Expectations (Dickens), Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Joyce), The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger), Rumblefish (Hinton), Ladybird (Gerwig) & (quite literally) The LEGO Movie; to name a few. Until recently, Bildungsromans have been the unsung heroes (ha!) for many, as they first depart from home and journey into the world. Keep in mind, we’re the first generation privy to the ontological insights, didactically bequeathed by works like: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck; there’s something to be said about the necessity of experience, in earning, rather than simply learning, knowledge of oneself. Audiences, immersed in a Bildungsroman, join alongside the hero. Subsequently as the hero’s experience is articulated, the audience gains clarity within themselves.
It is no coincidence the genre emerged alongside a fundamental shift in the West’s understanding of identity. Following The Enlightenment, no longer was identity self contained upon an apriori interiority. What was once bestowed by machinations thought as beyond one’s agency: class, religion, sex—has since evolved into something constituted reflexively—by an ever growing number of social categories. The Sociologist, Charles Taylor, outlines in Sources of the Self, that following The Enlightenment the self was increasingly negotiated dialogically. This is to say, despite feeling as though oneself is the byproduct of autonomous and internal volitions, it is in part articulated in reference to external forces. In Joe’s case, parents, friends, the internet, romantic interests, market-forces, social norms and expectations, either clash or coalesce with the ideas he holds about himself. This formative process necessarily presupposes one of the album’s key motifs: articulation; akin to another central motif—dialectics, another process that necessitates articulation.
Dialectics can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle, though it is most fleshed out in the works of Georg Hegel. Dialectics refers to the dynamic process by which concepts or positions, through their internal tensions and contradictions, give rise to nuanced forms of understanding. Rather than a dichotomous dialogue, the dialectical movement reveals how seemingly opposed positions are internally related, and at times mutually constitutive, culminating in a higher-order synthesis.
Teens of Denial’s brilliance is derived from its use of dialectics within the Bildungsroman structure. Joe’s Bildungsroman journey lyrically unfolds between affirming and denying positions relating to his self understanding. His ability to synthesize these positions prenecessitates his ability to accept and thus articulate himself. It is not until Joe undergoes a true Bildung process that he will be able to synthesize the various conflicts and contentions—from within and from without himself—into a higher order understanding capable of affirming life. The life denying nature of Joe’s initial state is clear from the first line of the first track: Fill in the Blank
Track 1: Fill in the Blank
“He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
We first encounter Joe as he dialogically oscillates between two positions pertaining to his self-understanding: he has a right to be depressed and he has no right to be depressed.
[Verse 1]
I’m so sick of, fill in the blank
Accomplish more, accomplish nothing
It doesn’t matter what the world has to offer. Whatever lies beyond his self assured horizons is written off. Filling in the blank, is the negation of articulation. It is a schema of predetermined pessimism that cannot further his understanding.
If I were split in two, I would just take my fists
So I can beat up the rest of me
Joe conceives opposition as inherently adversarial, something to be attacked rather than understood. This dialectical homage (split into two) illustrates Joe’s adversarial relationship to himself. He cannot synthesize opposing parts within himself, such a process presupposes articulation. Operating from a place of predetermined pessimism, simply filling in the blanks precludes any semblance of genuine articulation. Thus, his anger is turned inward; he berates himself asserting the track’s second position:
You have no right to be depressed
You haven’t tried hard enough to like it
Haven’t seen enough of this world yet
No attempt is made to understand, only to condemn. We see in real time as Joe beats himself up. No wonder he responds not in refutation but with mere whining:
But it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts
Having unsuccessfully refuted himself, he’s invited to:
Well, stop your whining, try again
No one wants to cause you pain
They’re just trying to let some air in
But you hold your breath, you hold your breath, you hold it
Hold my breath, I hold my breath, I hold it
Ostensibly afraid and ashamed of what’s inside himself, he shuts himself out partially and others out totally. What remains is a blank space to beat himself up within. Herein, we see Joe’s frustration with his aversion to intimacy culminate in self-flagellation. Furthermore, this aversion to intimacy is both the cause of, and inability to resolve—conflict. Despite the presence of a dialectical framework, Joe cannot synthesize, or articulate, the opposing positions into a resonant insight.
[Verse 2]
Joe reflects on the life denying implications of his aversion to intimacy. Specifically, the ways he holds his breath, rather than opening up to the people in his life.
I’ve known for a long time
I’m not getting what I want out of people
It took me a long time
To figure out I don’t know what I want
You’ll ask, “Why?”, and there will be no answer
Then you’ll ask, “For how long?”, and there will be no answer
Then you’ll ask, “What can I do?”, and there will be no answer
And eventually, you will shut up
Despite understanding there is more to get out of life, he’s unable to articulate what that might be. Joe does not wield the requisite amount of vulnerability necessitated by such enquiries, largely in part because he’s unable to accept himself. If he is to let others in, first he must let himself in. Until then he is doomed to stophittingyourselfstophittingyourselfstophittingyourself:
[Chorus]
You have no right to be depressed
You haven’t tried hard enough to like it
Haven’t seen enough of this world yet
But it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts
Well, stop your whining, try again
No one wants to cause you pain
They’re just trying to let some air in
But you hold your breath, you hold your breath, you hold it
Hold my breath, I hold my breath, I hold it
[Bridge]
Unable to negate the aforementioned life denying position, Joe doubles down on the idea that there is no help for him in the outside world. If anything, he is exactly where the world has told him he belongs:
I get signs
From the cops
Saying, “Stay the fuck down”
I get signs
From the audience
Saying, “Stay the fuck down”
I get signs
From God
Saying, “Stay the fuck down”
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Herein lies the logical conclusion of Joe’s life denying fill in the blank schema: a world constituted by predetermined pessimism. Unfortunately for Joe, he is part of this world; conscious of it or not. As he goes through life filling in the blanks, he undermines the potential to conceive of himself as anything more than an unfulfilled-blank passively filling in time and space. The ideas held about oneself are inextricable from those held of the world, and vice-versa. This interplay constitutes subjective experience and thus agency. To affirm life, one must be fulfilled. How can one find fulfillment if they understand their existence as inherently vacuous? What a perfect justification for… well… in his own words…:
[Outro]
I’ve got a right to be depressed
(You’ve got no right to be depressed)
I’ve given every inch I had to fight it
(You haven’t tried hard enough to like it)
I have seen too much of this world, yes
(Haven’t seen enough of this world yet)
But it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts
And I will never see the light
(So stop your whining, try again)
That I’ve seen shining in your eyes
(No one wants to cause you pain)
You just want to see me naked
(They’re just trying to let some air in, but you)
So I’ll hold my breath, I hold my breath, I hold it
(Hold your breath, you hold your breath, you hold it)
Hold my breath, I hold my breath, I hold my breath
I hold my breath, I hold my breath, I hold my breath
Tragically, with the dialectical framework in front of him, he cannot synthesize the various positions entailed in the outro. Yet again managing little more than continuing to beat himself up.
How can our hero live with himself, let alone affirm life? It’s no wonder he’s depressed… but how depressed is he? Unable to articulate himself, he relies on the help of a certain painting to describe it…