In August 2001, Darnielle was driving from Ames, Iowa, to the airport in Des Moines and Lee Ann Womack’s “I Hope You Dance” came on the radio. “I was listening,” he said at a show in 2006, and I thought, “God, this is horrifying! This is a terrible, terrible song, teaching people awful lies!” And I was sort of singing along at the same time because it had a catchy melody. And the song goes “I hope you dance, I hope you dance,” and I just sort of vamped on it, I went like, “I hope you die, I hope you die!” And I thought, “Well, that’s an idea, isn’t it?” So I scribbled it down on a receipt and I tucked it into my pocket.
One of the top comments for the Youtube video of "No Children" describes it as a "total commitment to losing". I think that's a good way of putting it, at least for most of the song; it seems that Darnielle dug his heels in on the hatred and anger out of spite. Out of spite for what I couldn't precisely say before you wrote this and pointed me to "I Hope You Dance". I listened to it a few minutes ago and almost spit my water laughing, because I can so clearly imagine Darnielle reacting so violently to a song that leaves no room to feel the things he crams "No Children" entirely with - failure, disillusionment, anger, hatred and self-hatred, spite, and so on. It's so in-character and the image of him scribbling furiously on a receipt in his car so self evident that it's fucking hilarious. I have to admit that the distance I feel to this song is now slightly amplified by this meta-knowledge of Darnielle's reaction.
But the other part of the distance I feel is the "leaving no room" for other feelings. Womack's song is sweet, naive, and definitely a bop - but more than that (and I promise this is relevant). I was watching The Age of Innocence by Martin Scorcese last night, and there's a line in there my mind flashed back to as I read your post. The narrator comes on towards the end of the movie and describes one of the main characters, a woman played by Winona Ryder, who is happy and cheerful in a wilfully ignorant kind of way: "so lacking in imagination, so incapable of growth, that the world of her youth had fallen into pieces and rebuilt itself without her ever being conscious of the change. This hard bright blindness had kept her immediate horizon apparently unaltered ... And she had died thinking the world a good place."
There is a similar "hard, bright blindness" in the kindergarten-teacher philosophy of Womack's song and this is, I think, what Darnielle's song was responding to. But "No Children" does the same thing - sure, in a self-aware way, and there are little openings that you point out which are great ("I hope I lie", "I am drowning") and I'm glad you brought my attention to - but there is a hard line of anger that I can't deny here, and it makes me, personally, take a step back and feel remote from the lyrics.
And it is personal, because I'm sure some people are drawn to this song like a magnet, but I only observe it respectfully from the outside, because I don't think I have the requisite levels of self-loathing or bitterness, even in times of crisis or heartbreak. There are times when I think I ought to be, and try to will myself out of my default state of "sanguine" to really feel, say, "No Children", but I just can't.
Anyway, I'm just glad that Darnielle recognizes that unforgivingness on some level, knows that it's not the whole picture, and engineers some ambiguity and space into the song. Thanks for another great post!
I like this take on this song. But the pure bright line of anger in this song. Idk. The satisfaction of destruction. Darnielle: " There's a sweetness in the worst things." Perhaps the essay or me reading into the essay highlights nostalgia a bit more than the song highlights nostalgia. Because all these memories are nothing except the long last effort to die. To remember the past, a past worth remembering, in order to drown it. This song is about those who couldn't attain purity attaining purity. This song is a triumph.
One of the top comments for the Youtube video of "No Children" describes it as a "total commitment to losing". I think that's a good way of putting it, at least for most of the song; it seems that Darnielle dug his heels in on the hatred and anger out of spite. Out of spite for what I couldn't precisely say before you wrote this and pointed me to "I Hope You Dance". I listened to it a few minutes ago and almost spit my water laughing, because I can so clearly imagine Darnielle reacting so violently to a song that leaves no room to feel the things he crams "No Children" entirely with - failure, disillusionment, anger, hatred and self-hatred, spite, and so on. It's so in-character and the image of him scribbling furiously on a receipt in his car so self evident that it's fucking hilarious. I have to admit that the distance I feel to this song is now slightly amplified by this meta-knowledge of Darnielle's reaction.
But the other part of the distance I feel is the "leaving no room" for other feelings. Womack's song is sweet, naive, and definitely a bop - but more than that (and I promise this is relevant). I was watching The Age of Innocence by Martin Scorcese last night, and there's a line in there my mind flashed back to as I read your post. The narrator comes on towards the end of the movie and describes one of the main characters, a woman played by Winona Ryder, who is happy and cheerful in a wilfully ignorant kind of way: "so lacking in imagination, so incapable of growth, that the world of her youth had fallen into pieces and rebuilt itself without her ever being conscious of the change. This hard bright blindness had kept her immediate horizon apparently unaltered ... And she had died thinking the world a good place."
There is a similar "hard, bright blindness" in the kindergarten-teacher philosophy of Womack's song and this is, I think, what Darnielle's song was responding to. But "No Children" does the same thing - sure, in a self-aware way, and there are little openings that you point out which are great ("I hope I lie", "I am drowning") and I'm glad you brought my attention to - but there is a hard line of anger that I can't deny here, and it makes me, personally, take a step back and feel remote from the lyrics.
And it is personal, because I'm sure some people are drawn to this song like a magnet, but I only observe it respectfully from the outside, because I don't think I have the requisite levels of self-loathing or bitterness, even in times of crisis or heartbreak. There are times when I think I ought to be, and try to will myself out of my default state of "sanguine" to really feel, say, "No Children", but I just can't.
Anyway, I'm just glad that Darnielle recognizes that unforgivingness on some level, knows that it's not the whole picture, and engineers some ambiguity and space into the song. Thanks for another great post!
I like this take on this song. But the pure bright line of anger in this song. Idk. The satisfaction of destruction. Darnielle: " There's a sweetness in the worst things." Perhaps the essay or me reading into the essay highlights nostalgia a bit more than the song highlights nostalgia. Because all these memories are nothing except the long last effort to die. To remember the past, a past worth remembering, in order to drown it. This song is about those who couldn't attain purity attaining purity. This song is a triumph.