Hell is Where the Heart Is: The Palpable Darkness of Razorblade Suitcase

 

Okay, let's get the obvious out of the way. Bush is not an underground band, nor are they a stoner/doom band. In fact, many die hard alt rock fans argue incessantly about whether or not the band can even rightfully be called grunge. Some are quick to claim that Bush is nothing more than a music industry ploy of sorts, utilizing frontman Gavin Rossdale's model-esque appearance to gain attention, particularly of the female variety. (I feel obligated to admit that, as a warm-blooded heterosexual woman with a pulse, this is a large part of the reason yours truly began listening to Bush as a teenager). The band was also constantly compared to Nirvana (for the life of me, even though I know I'm biased, I don't hear it). In short, Bush is a band that gets a lot of undeserved hate. All of that aside, they're one of my favorite bands of all time, and I have absolutely no shame in admitting that. Bush was one of the first grunge bands I heard as a kid, and that opened up the gateway to my getting into many other bands and genres. More than any other band I've listened to, they're the one that's stayed with me the longest, whose sound and lyrics mean infinitely more to me now as an adult. People come and go, but some of our favorite bands have a way of sticking around for the whole ride. Bush is that band for me. So, all of that said, this blog post is written for admittedly selfish reasons. It's kind of my way of paying tribute to a band that I love, but also a way of exploring and sharing a specific album and the beauty of the lyrics found on it.

If you're still with me, here we go:

Most of us know of the hits that came from Bush's debut album, Sixteen Stone: Machinehead, Everything Zen, Little Things, Comedown, and Glycerine. These are definitely radio-friendly, alternative rock hits; heavy but not too heavy, fitting in seamlessly with the sound of the time. I'd say the most controversial moment was the use of the word "asshole" on Everything Zen. Following Sixteen Stone, Bush released three more albums with their original lineup (Gavin Rossdale on vocals/rhythm guitar, Nigel Pulsford on lead guitar, Dave Parsons on bass, and Robin Goodridge on drums). Razorblade Suitcase was released in 1996, followed by The Science of Things in 1999, and finally Golden State in 2001. A hiatus and lineup change followed, but the band is still alive and well today, touring frequently and boasting over a dozen albums in their discography.

With each album mentioned above, Bush changed their sound quite a bit. While Sixteen Stone could perhaps be described as more cookie-cutter alternative rock, it's worth noting that Razorblade Suitcase took a rather dark turn, which will be the primary focus of this article. Having been a fan of Bush for well over 20 years now, I can safely say that Razorblade Suitcase is my favorite album from the band, in both sound and meaning alike. According to Rossdale, this album was written primarily while on the road, in about one month, all while reeling from the demise of a long-term relationship. That anguish is at the forefront of Razorblade Suitcase's feel and composition. The album's lead single, Swallowed, was its most successful, holding the number one spot on the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks Chart for seven weeks. Now, if you're the slightest bit familiar with this album, you're probably aware that Swallowed is markedly different from the rest of the tracks, and is certainly the most likely track to gain radio attention. However, it's the rest of the album that, to this listener, brilliantly depicts a feeling most of us are all too familiar with after facing a traumatic time in life; a storm cloud of despair that follows us around for days, months, sometimes years. It casts its gray shadow onto everything we know and eventually becomes our new normal. We may cry, rage, isolate, question everything, and take a reluctant ride on that proverbial roller coaster of emotion. Then hopefully one day, albeit weary, we wake up and decide to fight against it, eventually finding our "way to the sun". 

Now, I want to dive a bit deeper into this imagery by looking at Razorblade Suitcase track-by-track, sharing some of my favorite lyrics and thoughts about each song. 

Personal Holloway

Personal Holloway opens the album in a big way, a heavy alternative rock/grunge song if I ever heard one. In fact, I can easily see this being the single from the album instead of Swallowed. 

Personal Holloway is one of a handful of songs from Razorblade Suitcase that has a music video, although it didn't receive any of that almighty MTV attention. However, the video is incredibly cool with great production, featuring people in their formal office attire running in a synchronized yet haphazard way through the streets (a message about being caught up in the rat race, perhaps?)

This song touches on the two facedness of life, how things seem one way, usually altogether pleasant at face value, but they're either a complete facade or have an ulterior motive. 

Personal Holloway also discusses the unrealistic/outdated societal expectations for women. 

Favorite lyrics:

"Suburban suicide

Watching night come amber

It's all so temporary

Deaf and dumb with the lights on 

Married by signs"

Greedy Fly

I think we all know how it feels to know that you have very little control over your negative, intrusive thoughts, as well as the indecisiveness of ourselves and others, and this song is about just that. Both vocals and instrumentals grow increasingly frantic throughout the song, an apt reminder of how frustrating it feels to deal with a situation like this in real life. 

Favorite lyrics:

"I am poison crazy lush

Built these hands to lift me up 

We are servants of our formulaic ways

I'm screaming daisies

From fourteen miles away

I've got my own time

Got it all today

Make up your mind

I need some help 

To fight this mind, mind, mind

Limbo this and limbo that

You were this and you were that

Ever know that what you fear

Is what you find

This Indian summer

I signed my life away

There's a greedy fly in here

And I fly away"

Swallowed

According to Gavin Rossdale, Swallowed is about "massive success after failing for years". I find it to be relatable in another way: being on autopilot because you feel too numb to be present or enjoy/process real life ("I'm with everyone and yet not"). Natural defense mechanism though it may be, it's definitely something we've all experienced. 

Favorite lyrics:

"Piss on, self-esteem 

Forward, busted knee

Sick head, blackened lungs

And I'm simple, selfish son

Swallowed, followed

Heavy 'bout everything but my love

Swallowed, oh no

I'm with everyone and yet not"

Insect Kin

If Bush ever almost did a metal thing, Insect Kin is it. This one reminds me of the stage in the grief process when, after we've experienced our fair share of sadness and perhaps even some self-pity, we start getting angry, especially when we're struggling to get over something (or someone). Insect Kin features guttural screams, distorted guitars, and booming drums that are much heavier than what Bush typically provides (we hear this to a slightly lesser extent on Greedy Fly as well). At the end of the song, however, things slow down and the lyrics/vocals switch to expressing pain at all the sensory reminders of the ex-girlfriend in question. Grief is a process, yes, but sometimes we have to backtrack a bit in order to move forward. 

Favorite lyrics:

"You caught the light again 

In a perfect way

The biggest threat of all

Is in the alleyway

You're the demon seed

You're the factor

Feel better with a 

Little bit of plaster"

Cold Contagious

While this is certainly a dreary song, it's all about moving on, perhaps begrudgingly so, evident in those anguished cries of "You will get yours!"

Favorite lyrics:

"Reality day trips

And your suit me, suit me ways

Turn out the light switch

We've been awake for days" 

A Tendency to Start Fires

This is another song that I think could have been a single. 

When the song starts with that isolated guitar part that builds into the rest of the band joining in (something guitarist Nigel Pulsford rather specializes in), I always imagine looking off into the distance to see a rapidly approaching wall of flame, but it's too late to run. To me, this song touches a bit on "killing yourself to live"; doing what's needed in order to maintain peace and civility. Sometimes, of course, that really sucks, because it goes against our instincts to scream, "That's bullshit!" and it inevitably wears on us. 

Favorite lyrics:

"Strange zoo, strange blaze

Douse my head in flames

Coming new, gotta get some

Happiness is a bad son"

Mouth

To a small extent, this one seems pretty self-explanatory. Your mouth is probably the most likely thing to get you in trouble by saying something in the heat of the moment that you'll later regret, without thinking of how deep it may cut the person it was directed toward. However, I'm quite sure this song is about a lot more than that; I'll never pretend to be able to get inside the head of a lyricist or poet and know exactly what's going on in there (which is actually beautiful thing about poetry; it can reveal a lot about the author, but certainly not all, cloaked in simile and metaphor). I also like how the guitar part that starts the song sounds sneaky, almost a bit snarky, which fits right in with the theme. Furthermore, the increasingly agitated repetition of the word "mouth" as the song ends very deftly conveys the anger and frustration expressed throughout the song. 

Favorite lyrics:

"You gave me this

Made me give

You have soul machine

Broken free

All your mental armor drags me down

We can't breathe when you come around

All your mental armor drags me down

Nothing hurts like your mouth"

Straight, No Chaser

This is one of a handful of exceptionally melancholy songs on Razorblade Suitcase, and also one of a few that beautifully utilizes string arrangements. It's also a song that focuses less on specifics and more generally on the raw feeling of pain that comes, as the song states, "straight, no chaser".  There's also something incredibly sorrowful and even a bit haunting about the simple repetition of the phrase "There's nothing like losing you," at the end of the song. That's primarily what this entire record is about, after all. 

Favorite lyrics:

"It's all in the way we know that we could have it all

Some satellites of pain can't always be ignored

It's all in the face of what we thought we knew before"

History

History, as I learned recently, is actually themed around abortion, which is something I had a hard time deciphering from the lyrics when I was younger. 

Favorite lyrics

"Falling faster than a liar's grin

We need to be saved from the shit we're in

I believe in you, I have found

The perfect way to bring me down"

Synapse

This is a song that, in part, describes someone who is quick to cast blame on others and self-sabotages themselves a bit as a result. I always found the phrase "hell is where the heart is" used here to be a very good creative choice. Not only is it a memorable and clever play on "home is where the heart is", but it fits in very well with the concept of the album as a whole. The narrator's heart has certainly found a new "home" in "hell"; much like how we as humans will usually find a way to find comfort and familiarity in our discontent.

Favorite lyrics:

"Thinking you know

Thinking you see all sides

Casting a stone from your hand

Yeah right

Hell is where the heart is

Synapse again"

Communicator

Communicator feels much like a desperate internal dialogue, possibly due to nervous exhaustion. The repeated phrase, "Somewhere, sometime, all things will be fine" is like a mantra that's feebly keeping the narrator going through his mental anguish. "Splinter left, focus right," stumble along, show up, just keep going. 

The fatigued and dazed tone of the song with its relatively simple and muted instrumentals feels a bit like an interlude on the album, as if the situation is about to take a turn. 

Favorite lyrics:

"Somewhere, sometime

All things will be fine

And it never seems enough"

Bonedriven

Bonedriven is one of the aforementioned intensely melancholy, heart-wrenching songs that dot the album, and it also has the most notable string arrangement. The lyrics at the beginning of the song in particular are written in very short sentences of one to three words on average that feels a lot like a stream of consciousness, and thereby ties into the preceding track very well. 

Favorite lyrics:

"A thousand lamps

Won't lift the dark

Rest of our lives

Might have already passed"

Distant Voices

Here we are, at the finding our "way to the sun" part I mentioned in the beginning. Ah, you made it. I hope you're not terribly depressed. 

Almost always, overcoming an obstacle, be it large or small, comes at a cost. At the very least, a minor inconvenience. In more trying cases, the cost may be "destroying" oneself, as this song communicates. 

It's pretty obvious that Distant Voices discusses self-harm/suicide ("the coat she wore could not conceal the scars"); I don't want to gloss over or make light of that. However, it's not presented as a certainty,  only as a possibility. For all this doubt and uncertainty, there is just as much hope presented here, referencing the difficulty in relinquishing old habits, embracing reality (however cold and dark it may be), and simply just trying. It's difficult as all hell, sure, but you're doing it, and that's the point. 

Rossdale himself introduced the song at a live show in Tennessee in 1997, "This is a little song about finding some sunshine and moving away." 

The sad reality is, scars are inevitably left behind, but life does go on, and hopefully those scars start to fade a bit. 

Favorite lyrics:

"I never thought I'd get away

All there is fading fast today

Maybe you sleep well in your head

Bring on the night, let the cold moon burn instead

Cause I'm going to find my way to the sun

If I destroy myself..."

In 2016, Razorblade Suitcase was reissued to celebrate its 20th anniversary. This remastered version also includes four bonus tracks: Broken TV, Old, Sleeper, and Bubbles. These bonus tracks, as luck would have it, are absolute gold. They definitely don't fit in with the bleakness of Razorblade Suitcase; they're all quite upbeat or at least as cautiously optimistic as grunge can be. In fact, I would liken these bonus tracks more to the material found on Bush's debut album Sixteen Stone. Dare I say, I think they may be even better. Two of these songs in particular truly encompass what I consider to be the sound and feeling of the grunge era, and those are Old and Sleeper. If you're a fan of Bush or of grunge/alternative music in general, I really can't recommend these two songs enough:

At the end of the day, it's very easy to dismiss a band or write them off as too mainstream, a carbon copy of another band, etc. However, if you give a band a chance, they just may impress you with their ability to grow and evolve creatively. Bush is no different. Instead of releasing a clone of Sixteen Stone, the band took a risk and a darker route, being honest and forthcoming about the mental processes and tribulations of navigating a particularly difficult time. To be able to do this in general, but in musical/lyrical form no less, is quite admirable, and characteristic of a band that isn't content to stagnate creatively. 

If you made it to the end, thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming along on this journey of exploring and unpacking a bit of the deeper meaning behind this beautiful album. It's one that's always meant a lot to me and I hope you'll get something out of it, too. 

-Stephanie

...and for more mainstream grunge goodness, check out my article about the "Singles" movie soundtrack!