• Log In

The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog

Subscribe on Android Spotify Google Podcasts audible patreon
  • Home
  • Podcast
    • PEL Network Episodes
    • Publicly Available PEL Episodes
    • Paywalled and Ad-Free Episodes
    • PEL Episodes by Topic
    • Nightcap
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Pretty Much Pop
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • (sub)Text
    • Phi Fic Podcast
    • Combat & Classics
    • Constellary Tales
  • Blog
  • About
    • PEL FAQ
    • Meet PEL
    • About Pretty Much Pop
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • Meet Phi Fic
    • Listener Feedback
    • Links
  • Join
    • Become a Citizen
    • Join Our Mailing List
    • Log In
  • Donate
  • Store
    • Episodes
    • Swag
    • Everything Else
    • Cart
    • Checkout
    • My Account
  • Contact
  • Mailing List

Partially Naked Self-Examination Music Blog: Dawning on Me

April 10, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

Listen to "Dawning on Me."

I had the pleasure of recently interviewing Ken Stringfellow, best known for his band The Posies, but also a touring member of R.E.M. and part of the revived (1993–2010) line-up of Big Star, and this song is really about the latter band. It's stylistically influenced by their acoustic ballads (like "Thirteen," thus the wording of the second line of the lyric, the first quoting "In the Street"), but it's also about two aspects of the phenomena:

First, many musician/music-critic/music-store-snob types worship this band (see this article re. their influence). Big Star's music permits a high level of sentimentality for dudes who are not allowed to like power ballads. My favorites of their tunes in this category are "The Ballad of El Goodo" and "I Am the Cosmos"; I've covered both of these myself here and here. The whole phenomena is very well depicted in the 2012 documentary film Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me.

The second element, which comes out in the second verse of my tune here, is how much Alex Chilton, the main singer (i.e., the one who stuck around for the full duration of the band), really didn't get the appeal of Big Star. He saw the music as basically juvenile and sloppy, and was seemingly just not at all a sentimental guy, either about his early work or as someone who would react as I do to the songs.

So I wrote and recorded this song shortly after my interview with Ken where he described Alex's attitude. I'm certainly no stranger to ambivalence, and don't have a problem with feeling something deeply but at the same time feeling that it's kind of silly. Those things that seep into many of us like Jungian archetypes from Marvel to Star Wars to LOTR-ripoff fantasy are pretty inarguably juvenile, as is rock and roll itself, and accepting that is a part of getting over yourself. It's fine if what warms you all over really just is "warmed over," and if you're resistant to that idea, hopefully some penetrating self-insight will dawn on you at some point, what with music being a way of discovering things about ourselves.

I was very pleased that Ken agreed to record a harmony vocal on the song, remotely and without any particular suggestions from me. It was great to have my voice harmonized by one of my vocal idols, and it gave the song an authentic Big Star pedigree despite my not layering on chimey electric guitars or sprawling drums. I did consider such things, but after letting the song sit for some weeks after receiving Ken's part, trying to decide whether to have my current bandmates add keyboard or female vocal or whatnot, I just put some quick additional harmonies on it myself to fill things out and called it done, for now at least. I hope you like it!

The lyrics:

Heard you down the street
Feel like I’m thirteen
Never felt so good to be
Be alone

Held up imagery
Only big to me
And several hundred others
Who like to feel good feeling bad

Wholly awarming over
Basically swarming over me
Don’t you adore, it’s over
Dawning on me

Maybe be big deal
Though so small you feel
Your select appeal is real,
But excludes you

It all felt much too lame
Fortunes never came
You won’t out last your name, though
We seize, we feel you more than you do

Wholly a warming over
Maybe the storm blows over, see
Despite yourself left a legacy
Preserved, enshrined, re-enacted
Deserved or not, still effective
Always dawning on and on and on

[Note: according to Google, the image I chose here is from Alex Chilton's tumblr account, though probably it's just from someone else's account, talking about Alex. I find it difficult to imagine him having such an account before his death in 2010. Whatever; I thought it was a cool coincidence when I was searching for a picture.]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Filed Under: Nakedly Self-Examined Music Tagged With: Alex Chilton, Big Star, Ken Stringfellow

Trackbacks

  1. NEM #39: Ken Stringfellow: Posies, Big Star, etc. | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    April 10, 2017 at 1:03 am

    […] Read about and hear the song Mark wrote in reaction to this episode, featuring harmony vocals by Ken… […]

    Reply
  2. Episode 162: James Baldwin on Race in America (Part Two) | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog says:
    May 1, 2017 at 10:46 am

    […] End song: "Dawning on Me" by Mark Lint feat. Ken Stringfellow, who was interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music ep. 39. Read about it. […]

    Reply
  3. NEM#39: Ken Stringfellow: Posies, Big Star, etc. says:
    October 22, 2017 at 12:38 pm

    […] Read about and hear the song Mark wrote in reaction to this episode, featuring harmony vocals by Ken… […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PEL Live Show 2023

Brothers K Live Show

Citizenship has its Benefits

Become a PEL Citizen
Become a PEL Citizen, and get access to all paywalled episodes, early and ad-free, including exclusive Part 2's for episodes starting September 2020; our after-show Nightcap, where the guys respond to listener email and chat more causally; a community of fellow learners, and more.

Rate and Review

Nightcap

Listen to Nightcap
On Nightcap, listen to the guys respond to listener email and chat more casually about their lives, the making of the show, current events and politics, and anything else that happens to come up.

Subscribe to Email Updates

Select list(s):

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Support PEL

Buy stuff through Amazon and send a few shekels our way at no extra cost to you.

Tweets by PartiallyExLife

Recent Comments

  • Theo on Ep. 308: Moore’s Proof of Mind-Independent Reality (Part Two)
  • Seth Paskin on PEL Eulogies Nightcap Late March 2023
  • John Heath on PEL Eulogies Nightcap Late March 2023
  • Randy Strader on Ep. 309: Wittgenstein On Certainty (Part Two)
  • Wes Alwan on PEL Nightcap February 2023

About The Partially Examined Life

The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we’re talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion

Become a PEL Citizen!

As a PEL Citizen, you’ll have access to a private social community of philosophers, thinkers, and other partial examiners where you can join or initiate discussion groups dedicated to particular readings, participate in lively forums, arrange online meet-ups for impromptu seminars, and more. PEL Citizens also have free access to podcast transcripts, guided readings, episode guides, PEL music, and other citizen-exclusive material. Click here to join.

Blog Post Categories

  • (sub)Text
  • Aftershow
  • Announcements
  • Audiobook
  • Book Excerpts
  • Citizen Content
  • Citizen Document
  • Citizen News
  • Close Reading
  • Combat and Classics
  • Constellary Tales
  • Exclude from Newsletter
  • Featured Ad-Free
  • Featured Article
  • General Announcements
  • Interview
  • Letter to the Editor
  • Misc. Philosophical Musings
  • Nakedly Examined Music Podcast
  • Nakedly Self-Examined Music
  • NEM Bonus
  • Not School Recording
  • Not School Report
  • Other (i.e. Lesser) Podcasts
  • PEL Music
  • PEL Nightcap
  • PEL's Notes
  • Personal Philosophies
  • Phi Fic Podcast
  • Philosophy vs. Improv
  • Podcast Episode (Citizen)
  • Podcast Episodes
  • Pretty Much Pop
  • Reviewage
  • Song Self-Exam
  • Supporter Exclusive
  • Things to Watch
  • Vintage Episode (Citizen)
  • Web Detritus

Follow:

Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Apple Podcasts

Copyright © 2009 - 2023 · The Partially Examined Life, LLC. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy · Terms of Use · Copyright Policy

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in