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Spite & Malice
Artist: Placebo ft Justin Warfield
Album: Black Market Music
Year: 2000
♥: I can't preface this any way other than stating the obvious: Placebo is probably my favourite band of all time (you already know this, but it bears repeating). Despite deeply loving so many artists, there is no other band that wrenches my heart quite like Placebo. Their melodies and instrumentation are tuned exactly to my ears: something about them pulls me in, sets me into a spiral. If there was ever a band that sounded the way my heart feels at its most intense, vibrant, it would be them. So, naturally, it's difficult for me to be objective about them.

"Spite & Malice" is not even in my top 10 Placebo songs, but I consistently return to it -- particularly in early spring, particularly when I am feeling a little volatile. Something is written into its core that calls me to attention -- to action, some listens. I can't help but jerk my entire body (in what I call "dancing") when those harsh guitar strums pop up; I'll probably never get over some of the lyrics. "Revolution, dope, guns, fucking in the sssstreets" --- so simple, so much said in a laundry list, and so viscerally (and I love how Justin Warfield says "fuck", like -- if you could do this to a word -- he's caressing and hitting it simultaneously).  That weird underlying, almost inhuman, voice crying for "REVOLUTION" -- throughout, but at 2:36 especially -- sends chills down my spine.

So obviously I think this is a pretty fabulous song.
But not objectively. And some people -- some people I loved very much -- didn't. I remember excitedly putting on Black Market Music back when everyone was still at Claremont. Probably March 2010. "This song coming up," I exclaimed to Meg and Julie as the track before "Spite & Malice" ended, "this song coming up is so good."
I remember my heart kind of sinking at the look on their faces. Raised eyebrows. A derogatory comment about the 'bad rapping.' "Okay, the rapping kind of sucks," I allowed, though that thought had never crossed my mind, "but the rest of the song is amazing!"
But it wasn't. Not to them. 


I picked this song for your '&' theme because I keep thinking about putting that symbol under my skin. I'm a bit hesitant with tattoos because I've always seen them as publicizing parts of yourself, maybe in ways that require a bit too much explanation. I have always associated them -- or at least, myself getting one -- with needing to show it off, somehow. Needing to tell people that I Did It, I got a tattoo and now I am A Cool Kid, or if not A Cool Kid, someone with a part of herself that the world needs to know about.
But then: what happens when (not if, when) the world doesn't give a fuck?
There is a [short] list of people I tell most things to. Some of them may read this post but chances are you're the only one who will, and you're also the only one who knows about my future ampersand. 'Cause thing is, as my continued love of "Spite & Malice" so wonderfully exemplifies: it really doesn't matter who knows. How I publicize myself. Who gets it, because chances are, no one really will, and definitely not in the same way I do. And if I'm going to mark myself, permanently, I'm going to do it on my own terms and I'm not going to tell anyone I'm doing it. It needs to be more quiet than that, more personal, more ineffable. To try to articulate everything "the ampersand" means to me...I could do it, if someone asked, but if I keep it to myself -- if someone will only ever see it unexpectedly -- it will be mine.

It's not that I don't like sharing, obviously; not even that I don't like sharing parts of myself. It's that I finally see the appeal of tattooing yourself for yourself. Extrapolated, in a larger context, that has some pretty profound repercussions.

Everything will blow tonight
Neither friend or foe, tonight.
To me,
that is perfect.