¶ Music Never Loses · 19 November 2007
The New England Revolution lost the 2007 MLS Cup final yesterday, 2-1. They made it to the final and lost last year, too. And the year before that. And in 2002, as well, when I was there in person to see it. Four times, and each time it makes me feel terrible. I want to be able to change the world and make the losses not have occurred, and barring that I want to not have to interact with any other human being for about a week. The premise, I think, is that the potential joy of winning, or actually the present-value of the future joy of one day possibly winning, outweighs the pain of losing, no matter how many times multiplied. Maybe this math works, but don't ask me to check it from experience until next season is underway.
The MLS Cup is not yet a media circus on the scale of the championships of more-established domestic sports, but I still don't expect to care about the halftime show. This year, though, it was a brief live performance by Jimmy Eat World. Only little bits were shown on the TV broadcast, but that was enough to make me happy, even if the Revolution hadn't been leading at halftime.
A day later, the Revs loss is no longer as numbing or present, but it is still a source of pain. But Chase This Light, the new Jimmy Eat World album, is wonderful. It was wonderful last week, it's wonderful this week. For some reason I can't rationally identify, it sings to me of Winter in a glittery, embracing, light-and-hope-drenched way. It makes me love frailty more, and love more.
By the next time the Revolution try to win a championship, my daughter will be old enough to understand, if not the event, then what it does to me. She will learn to care about things that can hurt her, or she won't. This will be her decision, not mine.
But she can already dance. She can already see what these songs do to me. Music does not compete. Chase This Light does not defeat Clarity or Futures, never mind Odinist or American Doll Posse or Send Away the Tigers. Loss is not required. It is possible to love everything more than everything else. I give her a world in which this is true, and this time I don't have to wish I could change anything, because this truth is already true here.
The MLS Cup is not yet a media circus on the scale of the championships of more-established domestic sports, but I still don't expect to care about the halftime show. This year, though, it was a brief live performance by Jimmy Eat World. Only little bits were shown on the TV broadcast, but that was enough to make me happy, even if the Revolution hadn't been leading at halftime.
A day later, the Revs loss is no longer as numbing or present, but it is still a source of pain. But Chase This Light, the new Jimmy Eat World album, is wonderful. It was wonderful last week, it's wonderful this week. For some reason I can't rationally identify, it sings to me of Winter in a glittery, embracing, light-and-hope-drenched way. It makes me love frailty more, and love more.
By the next time the Revolution try to win a championship, my daughter will be old enough to understand, if not the event, then what it does to me. She will learn to care about things that can hurt her, or she won't. This will be her decision, not mine.
But she can already dance. She can already see what these songs do to me. Music does not compete. Chase This Light does not defeat Clarity or Futures, never mind Odinist or American Doll Posse or Send Away the Tigers. Loss is not required. It is possible to love everything more than everything else. I give her a world in which this is true, and this time I don't have to wish I could change anything, because this truth is already true here.