The Brutality of this World – Fitzpleasure!

Hey everyone.

Recently I had the opportunity to attend a music festival with my sister. It was quite a fun event and I enjoyed the various artistes who performed with the headlining act as Alt-J, an alternative indie rock band from the UK.

I shall be very frank. I never heard them before and I attended the concert solely for my sister’s sake.

Since I am taller than her, I consider part of my job description as a sister to be her bodyguard.

The reason I am not very into what’s happening with music lately is that I am getting really rigid with my tastes. I prefer the classics.

Lazing around and playing music loudly is my kind of thing – not the noisy jostling of a crowded concert.

However, listening to Alt-J was definitely incredible. Their music stayed with me long after everything was over.

One of the songs that I enjoyed was called “Fitzpleasure”.  ( I am going to add the video in this blog.)

The first time I heard Alt-J , I really could not make out the lyrics. Not at all.

I remember being mesmerized though and since my sister and I had gone right to the front near the barricade, I could feel the music- the pulse, the bass and the energy. Mind blowing!

Bangaloreans are cool. The people were such big fans that they knew all the lyrics to every song. I didn’t, so I just gaped.

At one point the keyboardist was looking at me, and perhaps because I was the only one not singing along, he grinned and shrugged at me.

Oh well. I was embarrassed but then I brazenly refused to let it get to me. [Some people make it such an issue if you attend a concert and don’t know the band before. As long as you enjoy the music and don’t trouble anyone, chill out right? ]

So Alt-J was incredibly talented with their cascade of different music. I went back home and listened to all their songs, being particularly intrigued by Fitzpleasure.

At first, the lyrics look like innocent gibberish, but truly it’s not.

If you read the inspiration behind this song, it’s a bit chilling.

The song is inspired by one of the short stories in the 1960s novel “The Last Exit to Brookyln” which was quite controversial in it’s time for it’s bold portrayal of taboo subjects like homosexuality, rape etc.

The story is based on a prostitute called Tralala (the song begins with a “Tra-la-la”) who morally empty and violent herself gets brutally gang-raped.

Delving into this story is extremely creepy and I felt sick just reading the overview.

Playing the song later, I couldn’t help noticing its sheer beauty. I played it over and over again.

I then spent a whole day just mulling things over.

Reading the interview on BBC of the Delhi rapist and how he cooly talks about how the young girl should not have fought back later, I was reminded again of this song.

It’s like everything around me cries out about the brutality of this world.

The psychopathic frenzy which grips people to perform extremely violent, brutal acts on people without consideration of them as a human being is indeed, frightening.

But I can’t help wonder, does this song feel that way as well?

It’s so groovy, so awesome, that the message behind it is innocently hidden. A brutal gang-rape in a song that stays on your mind.

I don’t know what to make of it.

Is it a positive thing? I mean, if a song gets you to stop and think about how evil people can be… is it a way to make people cautious?

Frankly, during the concert, we saw scores of skimpily dressed women drunk and stoned and equally opportunistic men hanging around. It ended around 10 PM and it was raining… did everybody reach home safe?

I am probably going to get a lot of hate, but I just have to say that these places are like breeding grounds for danger, a minefield of potential disasters.

[ Date rapes? Yeah they are very possible.]

Thinking about it, we all just heard a song about brutal gang rape and yet we’re living on wild edge of danger.
Maybe the music falls on willing ears, but are we really listening?