I Got Drunk

This is the first of five songs from my early sobriety playlist "Another Day to Face Up, Another Day to Wake Up" that come from Uncle Tupelo and its descendents: three Jay Farrar songs, and two Jeff Tweedy songs. I've had a handful of signature, successive musical loves--Dylan, The Replacements, Springsteen, Uncle Tupelo, The Hold Steady--that have helped define whole periods in my life. I like a lot more music than just these musicians, but I only love music the way that I do because of these musicians.

The untimely split of UT in '94 spawned a silly Farrar vs. Tweedy sectarianism that, minus the bloodshed, remains about as enlightening and productive as Sunni vs. Shia. I prefer to stay rooted in both sides of the UT family tree. Here's their wikipedia entry if you want to know more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tupelo

"I Got Drunk" is about knowing you've got a problem but not giving enough of a damn to change it. And if you did give a damn, you'd still have no idea how to start making the changes that mattered. Emerging mostly from the punk part of Uncle Tupelo's country/folk/punk foundation, Farrar drawls/growls over a distorted thrash --"Well I took a fifth; and I poured me a shot; and I thought about all the things I haven't got. And I drank that down and I poured me some more; kept drinking and pouring til I felt the floor. I got drunk and I fell down..." It's a perfect song about immaturity, about a covetous reach that exceeds any emotional grasp. "I Got Drunk" is the kind of song written the morning after the crazy night before, quickly penned, then soon forgotten (the song was, after all, a B-Side). It's pace races ahead, not leaving enough time for the realization to sink in that there might be another, better way to live.

Although I didn't hear the song until years after it happened, "I Got Drunk" reminds me of when I was sixteen and got into the bar at my sister's Bat Mitzvah. One moment scotchfully giddy, the next moment sobbing at the back of my parents garage, crying to some friends and cousins about how nobody could possibly understand how misunderstood I was, how miserable and sensitive and unique. I look back now and try to forgive that kid that I was (and also ask the forgiveness of those people at the back of my parents garage, and those who followed them over the years, who had to listen to my drunken self-pity or, worse, my drunken anger), but what I remember at the time was how convinced I was that all my misgivings of myself and resentments of others were completely justified. I took to drinking not because I had no self-awareness of my feelings, but because I had far more of it than I wanted, and no clue what to do with it.

From the age of 13 on, I was praised by many adults for how mature I was, how empathetic I could be toward other people's feelings and so willing to express my own. But that empathy wasn't anything like a cultivated compassion for others, it was an unwieldy sensitivity to my own standing and status. (BTW, here's a link to a great Jonah Lehrer article that makes a related point about how to help kids succeed. At the end of the article he talks about "Fixed Mindsets" vs. "Growth Mindsets." I definitely suffered from a "Fixed Mindset" around being told I was mature--and like the article says, I was often easily frustrated and gave up on things, which, in turn, made drinking appear even more attractive because it would always welcome me back.)

Emotionally I was like an anxious Ed Koch standing at a NYC subway station asking, "How'm I doing?" I was in constant need of approval. Getting drunk turned my heart alarm off. Sweet relief... but only momentarily. Drinking just set it to snooze, because too often after a number of drinks, it started sounding more louldy and haphazardly than before. Anxiety became anger. Sighing became crying. And all that gangly stuff came spilling out. At the time I thought all that pain made me deep. But now I know that it just got me more pain, and also could make me a pain in the ass.

A couple years ago I made an amends to someone who witnessed a lot of the above type of behavior. Forgiving me, they said that when I got drunk and started to rehash my grievances and griefs, they always assumed the pain coming out was cathartic. I appreciated their understanding, but the problem for me was that there really wasn't any true letting go at those moments. Paraphrasing from a West Wing episode, when I drank I didn't simply remember what dogged me, I relived those memories and kept reliving them, giving life to old wounds that just wanted to be healed and released.

And now, thankfully, some of them are.

Until the next post, Happy Listening, Happy Living.

The only version of "I Got Drunk" I could find is this inferior one from the band Slobberbone. Note their seemingly unironic celebration of drinking. Jeez, guys, the song ain't "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)." Sigh.