Achilles Heel | Pedro the Lion
release date: 2004 record label: Jade Tree
track listing: 1) Bands With Managers
2) Forgone Conclusions
3) The Fleecing
4) Discretion
5) Arizona
6) Keep Swinging
7) Transcontinental
8) I Do
9) A Simple Plan
10) Start Without Me
11) The Poison
"who should I blame for this sweet and heavy trouble,
for every stupid struggle, I don’t know… ”
In Greek mythology, Achilles stands tall as a great warrior and the turning point in the Trojan War. Homer’s Iliad tells the story – with the Greeks facing certain defeat at the Battle of Troy, Achilles’ learns of the death of his cousin at the hand of the Trojan champion, Hector. His rage spills over and he rushes to the battlefield, looking for Hector and killing scores of Trojans in the process. Finally, a one-on-one battle allows Achilles to seek revenge against Hector, whose death all but ensures victory for the Greeks. According to the legend, Achilles was a demigod, the offspring of a god and a human. Hoping to ensure immortality for her son, the mother of Achilles took her newborn child by the heels of his feet and dipped him into the river Styx. This left him impervious to injuries; the one part of his body which was not submerged, his heels, were his only point of vulnerability. Thousands of years after these stories were first told by the Greeks, the term “Achilles heel” remains a synonym for an individual’s flaws or points of weakness.
Dave Bazan was Pedro the Lion. As principal lyricist and musician, this talented multi-instrumentalist built his band into the premier indie-darling of Christian music around the turn of the millennium. Musically, Pedro the Lion is known for fuzzy, distorted guitar licks that seem to never be in a hurry. The causal listener, however, is forced to a crossroads when it comes to Bazan’s lyrics – it is at this point where one becomes either a dedicated fan or is completely turned off. To put it mildly, his words turn heads. Although pegged as a Christian artist, Bazan has never been opposed to using an occasional four-letter word to express himself. Pedro the Lion’s third album, Control, was a concept album against capitalism. The lyrics stirred the waters of controversy quite a bit, especially the song Indian Summer, which, in reference to children said “you aught to start them young, that way they’ll naturally love the taste of corporate cum.” No matter how dark the subject matter covered by Bazan’s songs – unrequited love, hypocrisy and fighting doubt – there always seemed to be a silver-lining, a reference to hope in Christ or encouragement not to give up in the face of adversity. As fan of Pedro the Lion for a number of years, it was hard not to notice with each subsequent album, that the silver-lining was growing thinner and thinner. Unlike the ancient Greek hero for whom the album is named, Bazan makes no attempt to hide his vulnerabilities on this farewell album. In fact, Achilles Heel sounds like a man drowning in a dark sea of questions, doubts, misgivings, and fears. The silver-lining is gone. The honeymoon is most assuredly over.
The eleven songs comprising Achilles Heel are like individual Hemmingway novels – direct, each word carrying weight, leading us to a tragic end. Hopelessness is rampant, as is death and regret. As is the case with Hemmingway, Bazan’s songsare compelling – but don’t expect to leave them with anything other than a heavy heart. Achilles Heel is not an album for a sunny afternoon.
The albumopens with Bands With Managers, a slow-moving lament to the fate of most musicians – struggling to make a living and unable to please their loved ones: “bands with managers are going places … bands with messy hair and smooth white faces … but you don’t believe me when I say that it will be all right.” The album picks up considerable steam with Foregone Conclusions, a fan favorite regarding judgment and doomed relationships: “you and I are nothing more than foregone conclusions.” The Fleecing slows the pace down yet again and asks Job-like questions regarding why humans suffer and if there is anyone to blame. Discretion tells the story of the murder of a farming family who lay undiscovered for a number of days, allowing the killer to escape unscathed. (Although there are differences, I can’t listen to this song without thinking about Truman Capote’s haunting novel In Cold Blood, which tells a similar story.) One of my favorite songs on the album, Arizona gives the states of western America the human abilities to love, hate and cheat on each other: “Arizona curled up to California, and tried to hide the whole thing from New Mexico.” Keep Swinging tells the story of a character who deals with the trouble of life by abusing alcohol, riding in taxis while passed out and vomiting in hotel rooms; Bazan encourages the character to “just keep swinging till your over it.” There may be a bit of autobiography contained here, as Bazan himself has openly struggled with alcohol abuse.
Things don’t get much brighter as the listener makes his or her way past the halfway point of the album. Transcontinental, over an up-tempo beat, tells the story of a man who has his legs cut off by a train. Lying in pain, our character remembers a story he once heard about a man who, pinned beneath a fallen tree, freed himself by cutting through his own legs. Despite the inspiration, the character can’t find that type of bravery within himself and, instead, is “left to bleed to death.” I Do removes any bliss from the idea of marriage, telling the story of a couple who will now “bury dreams and raise a son to live vicariously through.” Bazan leaves no hope for the child as well, singing that if the baby knew the world he was being born in to, he would “climb right back in.” A Simple Plan finds a man who has worked his whole life to achieve equality among the classes and rights for workers. This man realizes the goal of his life – “the class war is over and everyone wins” – but in so doing, loses his “reason to breathe.” Bazan, as the character, continues “now that it’s over, and now that we won, I still sit in my bedroom, alone with a shotgun.” Instead of finding joy in his victory, the character settles on the simplest plan to deal with the pain of loss: suicide. Start Without Me follows a racecar driver who finds his family slipping away from him due to his addictions and a job that takes him far from home. The album ends with The Poison, yet another song about alcohol abuse, this time used to cope with the loss of a romantic relationship: “now its over and I can’t stay sober, but it isn’t like I try.” Bazan promises to continue drinking until “you come over, or there are x’s on my eyes.”
Bazan’s music, and especially this last album from Pedro the Lion, is depressing. If I’m honest with myself, I am drawn to his music because I can be a little depressive myself. More frequently that I’d like to admit, I find myself focusing on the negative, being hopeless or giving up too easily. My girlfriend has a name for me when I get into these funks: Eeyore. It’s a pretty spot-on comparison. I find, though, that I am not alone in this.
Watch TV for any length of time at all and you’re bound to come across a commercial for antidepressants. It seems, at least in America, that happiness is only a pill or two away. Before I go any further, let me say that I understand that there are some types of depression that need medication. For people truly suffering through that darkness, medication can certainly be a part of their healing. That being said, though, I fear that too many of us are numbing ourselves instead of truly confronting our inadequacies, questions and doubts. If we ever hope to find true healing, we must realize that the answer is not always going to be found in hiding behind a pill.
Thinking about my own depression-prone personality, I find that how I feel is often a function of my point of view. When my focus is myself, depression creeps in because I feel ordinary. Like everyone else, I’m struggling with finances, dealing with unfulfilling relationships, having arguments with loved ones and feeling unable to achieve my deepest dreams and desires. I was taught as a child that God made me special. Why, then, do I feel like just another face in the crowd? As my focus shifts to others, the feelings grow worse. When I think of friends who are working exciting jobs, getting married, having children and chasing their dreams, I feel like a failure. These emotions are understandable and, in fact, quite common. Nobody wants to grown up to be ordinary.
It is only when I forget myself that I begin to remember Jesus’ upside down kingdom – one where the poor are blessed, the first are last and the sin-sick are valued. In this kingdom, I find hope that what makes me ordinary, instead of being a reason for depression, is actually cause for celebration. The Creator of the universe loves me precisely because I am helpless and forgotten, chasing dead ends and feeling like a failure. This truth is portrayed throughout the arc of history, as God sets his affections on stuttering prophets, faithless followers, common fisherman and useless lepers. In His kingdom, prostitutes, tax collectors and former terrorists all find themselves being called a new name: children of God.
Small children are helpless to care for themselves. They rely on their parents for nourishment, provisions, guidance and love. If we consider ourselves children of God, then we must accept our role as newborns – people who, when left to our own devices, are utterly helpless. But Christ, as he promised in the book of John, did not leave us as orphans. We are being raised, feed, guided and loved by the most perfect parent, our Heavenly Father. When we realize and accept that we will never be able to help ourselves, our attention can turn fully to the only One who can. Christ himself declared that it was not the healthy who needed a doctor, but the sick. As I age, I recognize more and more sickness within myself. This can be viewed as personal shortcomings, leading to unhappiness and depression, or I can recognize that, because I am sick, the doctor will see me.
Doubtless, not everyone will view their weaknesses, vulnerabilities and flaws as a road to redemption. In fact, only a few years after the release of Achilles Heel, Dave Bazan would leave behind Christianity, publicly declaring himself an Agnostic. Since the end of Pedro the Lion, Bazan has continued to record as a solo artist. As has always been the case, his lyrics continue to shine a bright light on his doubts; many of his new songs focus on the loss of faith. Since I am not a personal friend of Dave Bazan, I cannot speak to what issues drove him to Agnosticism, nor can I begin to judge his decision or the thought processes that lead him to it. I do, however, feel a great deal of sadness for him. Part of that sadness, if I’m being completely honest, is selfish. I miss the biting lyrics and biblical honesty of his early albums, much of which was already gone by the time he made Achilles Heel. The brunt of my sadness, however, is focused on how hopeless he must feel. Viewed through the lens of an agnostic or atheist, human suffering has no purpose. There is no reason for depression, no higher purpose for having flaws or feeling like a failure. In Christianity, however, our flaws have a function – to convince, and remind us, that we are children in need of a Father. With Christ, our worst qualities may in fact be our best, for they express a need for a Savior who is greater than us.
When we can accept who we are – our seemingly ordinary lives, common problems and human flaws – we stop fighting our salvation. The most dangerous person to a lifeguard is a drowning man or woman who is panicking; their kicking and flailing makes their rescue all the more difficult. When we stop trying to earn the love of God by being strong enough, pretty enough or successful enough, we become like a drowning man who stops panicking. At that moment, we can be rescued. Bad things happen to good people, even followers of Christ, to remind them that they are still a child that needs a Father. If our lives were perfect, we would have no need for a God who is. Thank God, then, for our Achilles heels.
release date: 2004 record label: Jade Tree
track listing: 1) Bands With Managers
2) Forgone Conclusions
3) The Fleecing
4) Discretion
5) Arizona
6) Keep Swinging
7) Transcontinental
8) I Do
9) A Simple Plan
10) Start Without Me
11) The Poison
"who should I blame for this sweet and heavy trouble,
for every stupid struggle, I don’t know… ”
In Greek mythology, Achilles stands tall as a great warrior and the turning point in the Trojan War. Homer’s Iliad tells the story – with the Greeks facing certain defeat at the Battle of Troy, Achilles’ learns of the death of his cousin at the hand of the Trojan champion, Hector. His rage spills over and he rushes to the battlefield, looking for Hector and killing scores of Trojans in the process. Finally, a one-on-one battle allows Achilles to seek revenge against Hector, whose death all but ensures victory for the Greeks. According to the legend, Achilles was a demigod, the offspring of a god and a human. Hoping to ensure immortality for her son, the mother of Achilles took her newborn child by the heels of his feet and dipped him into the river Styx. This left him impervious to injuries; the one part of his body which was not submerged, his heels, were his only point of vulnerability. Thousands of years after these stories were first told by the Greeks, the term “Achilles heel” remains a synonym for an individual’s flaws or points of weakness.
Dave Bazan was Pedro the Lion. As principal lyricist and musician, this talented multi-instrumentalist built his band into the premier indie-darling of Christian music around the turn of the millennium. Musically, Pedro the Lion is known for fuzzy, distorted guitar licks that seem to never be in a hurry. The causal listener, however, is forced to a crossroads when it comes to Bazan’s lyrics – it is at this point where one becomes either a dedicated fan or is completely turned off. To put it mildly, his words turn heads. Although pegged as a Christian artist, Bazan has never been opposed to using an occasional four-letter word to express himself. Pedro the Lion’s third album, Control, was a concept album against capitalism. The lyrics stirred the waters of controversy quite a bit, especially the song Indian Summer, which, in reference to children said “you aught to start them young, that way they’ll naturally love the taste of corporate cum.” No matter how dark the subject matter covered by Bazan’s songs – unrequited love, hypocrisy and fighting doubt – there always seemed to be a silver-lining, a reference to hope in Christ or encouragement not to give up in the face of adversity. As fan of Pedro the Lion for a number of years, it was hard not to notice with each subsequent album, that the silver-lining was growing thinner and thinner. Unlike the ancient Greek hero for whom the album is named, Bazan makes no attempt to hide his vulnerabilities on this farewell album. In fact, Achilles Heel sounds like a man drowning in a dark sea of questions, doubts, misgivings, and fears. The silver-lining is gone. The honeymoon is most assuredly over.
The eleven songs comprising Achilles Heel are like individual Hemmingway novels – direct, each word carrying weight, leading us to a tragic end. Hopelessness is rampant, as is death and regret. As is the case with Hemmingway, Bazan’s songsare compelling – but don’t expect to leave them with anything other than a heavy heart. Achilles Heel is not an album for a sunny afternoon.
The albumopens with Bands With Managers, a slow-moving lament to the fate of most musicians – struggling to make a living and unable to please their loved ones: “bands with managers are going places … bands with messy hair and smooth white faces … but you don’t believe me when I say that it will be all right.” The album picks up considerable steam with Foregone Conclusions, a fan favorite regarding judgment and doomed relationships: “you and I are nothing more than foregone conclusions.” The Fleecing slows the pace down yet again and asks Job-like questions regarding why humans suffer and if there is anyone to blame. Discretion tells the story of the murder of a farming family who lay undiscovered for a number of days, allowing the killer to escape unscathed. (Although there are differences, I can’t listen to this song without thinking about Truman Capote’s haunting novel In Cold Blood, which tells a similar story.) One of my favorite songs on the album, Arizona gives the states of western America the human abilities to love, hate and cheat on each other: “Arizona curled up to California, and tried to hide the whole thing from New Mexico.” Keep Swinging tells the story of a character who deals with the trouble of life by abusing alcohol, riding in taxis while passed out and vomiting in hotel rooms; Bazan encourages the character to “just keep swinging till your over it.” There may be a bit of autobiography contained here, as Bazan himself has openly struggled with alcohol abuse.
Things don’t get much brighter as the listener makes his or her way past the halfway point of the album. Transcontinental, over an up-tempo beat, tells the story of a man who has his legs cut off by a train. Lying in pain, our character remembers a story he once heard about a man who, pinned beneath a fallen tree, freed himself by cutting through his own legs. Despite the inspiration, the character can’t find that type of bravery within himself and, instead, is “left to bleed to death.” I Do removes any bliss from the idea of marriage, telling the story of a couple who will now “bury dreams and raise a son to live vicariously through.” Bazan leaves no hope for the child as well, singing that if the baby knew the world he was being born in to, he would “climb right back in.” A Simple Plan finds a man who has worked his whole life to achieve equality among the classes and rights for workers. This man realizes the goal of his life – “the class war is over and everyone wins” – but in so doing, loses his “reason to breathe.” Bazan, as the character, continues “now that it’s over, and now that we won, I still sit in my bedroom, alone with a shotgun.” Instead of finding joy in his victory, the character settles on the simplest plan to deal with the pain of loss: suicide. Start Without Me follows a racecar driver who finds his family slipping away from him due to his addictions and a job that takes him far from home. The album ends with The Poison, yet another song about alcohol abuse, this time used to cope with the loss of a romantic relationship: “now its over and I can’t stay sober, but it isn’t like I try.” Bazan promises to continue drinking until “you come over, or there are x’s on my eyes.”
Bazan’s music, and especially this last album from Pedro the Lion, is depressing. If I’m honest with myself, I am drawn to his music because I can be a little depressive myself. More frequently that I’d like to admit, I find myself focusing on the negative, being hopeless or giving up too easily. My girlfriend has a name for me when I get into these funks: Eeyore. It’s a pretty spot-on comparison. I find, though, that I am not alone in this.
Watch TV for any length of time at all and you’re bound to come across a commercial for antidepressants. It seems, at least in America, that happiness is only a pill or two away. Before I go any further, let me say that I understand that there are some types of depression that need medication. For people truly suffering through that darkness, medication can certainly be a part of their healing. That being said, though, I fear that too many of us are numbing ourselves instead of truly confronting our inadequacies, questions and doubts. If we ever hope to find true healing, we must realize that the answer is not always going to be found in hiding behind a pill.
Thinking about my own depression-prone personality, I find that how I feel is often a function of my point of view. When my focus is myself, depression creeps in because I feel ordinary. Like everyone else, I’m struggling with finances, dealing with unfulfilling relationships, having arguments with loved ones and feeling unable to achieve my deepest dreams and desires. I was taught as a child that God made me special. Why, then, do I feel like just another face in the crowd? As my focus shifts to others, the feelings grow worse. When I think of friends who are working exciting jobs, getting married, having children and chasing their dreams, I feel like a failure. These emotions are understandable and, in fact, quite common. Nobody wants to grown up to be ordinary.
It is only when I forget myself that I begin to remember Jesus’ upside down kingdom – one where the poor are blessed, the first are last and the sin-sick are valued. In this kingdom, I find hope that what makes me ordinary, instead of being a reason for depression, is actually cause for celebration. The Creator of the universe loves me precisely because I am helpless and forgotten, chasing dead ends and feeling like a failure. This truth is portrayed throughout the arc of history, as God sets his affections on stuttering prophets, faithless followers, common fisherman and useless lepers. In His kingdom, prostitutes, tax collectors and former terrorists all find themselves being called a new name: children of God.
Small children are helpless to care for themselves. They rely on their parents for nourishment, provisions, guidance and love. If we consider ourselves children of God, then we must accept our role as newborns – people who, when left to our own devices, are utterly helpless. But Christ, as he promised in the book of John, did not leave us as orphans. We are being raised, feed, guided and loved by the most perfect parent, our Heavenly Father. When we realize and accept that we will never be able to help ourselves, our attention can turn fully to the only One who can. Christ himself declared that it was not the healthy who needed a doctor, but the sick. As I age, I recognize more and more sickness within myself. This can be viewed as personal shortcomings, leading to unhappiness and depression, or I can recognize that, because I am sick, the doctor will see me.
Doubtless, not everyone will view their weaknesses, vulnerabilities and flaws as a road to redemption. In fact, only a few years after the release of Achilles Heel, Dave Bazan would leave behind Christianity, publicly declaring himself an Agnostic. Since the end of Pedro the Lion, Bazan has continued to record as a solo artist. As has always been the case, his lyrics continue to shine a bright light on his doubts; many of his new songs focus on the loss of faith. Since I am not a personal friend of Dave Bazan, I cannot speak to what issues drove him to Agnosticism, nor can I begin to judge his decision or the thought processes that lead him to it. I do, however, feel a great deal of sadness for him. Part of that sadness, if I’m being completely honest, is selfish. I miss the biting lyrics and biblical honesty of his early albums, much of which was already gone by the time he made Achilles Heel. The brunt of my sadness, however, is focused on how hopeless he must feel. Viewed through the lens of an agnostic or atheist, human suffering has no purpose. There is no reason for depression, no higher purpose for having flaws or feeling like a failure. In Christianity, however, our flaws have a function – to convince, and remind us, that we are children in need of a Father. With Christ, our worst qualities may in fact be our best, for they express a need for a Savior who is greater than us.
When we can accept who we are – our seemingly ordinary lives, common problems and human flaws – we stop fighting our salvation. The most dangerous person to a lifeguard is a drowning man or woman who is panicking; their kicking and flailing makes their rescue all the more difficult. When we stop trying to earn the love of God by being strong enough, pretty enough or successful enough, we become like a drowning man who stops panicking. At that moment, we can be rescued. Bad things happen to good people, even followers of Christ, to remind them that they are still a child that needs a Father. If our lives were perfect, we would have no need for a God who is. Thank God, then, for our Achilles heels.
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