Call Of The Mild
Call of the Mild is a song from the EP Various Martyrs
“There is but one mode by which man can possess in perpetuity all the happiness which his nature is capable of enjoying, — that is by the union and co-operation of all for the benefit of each.”
Robert Owen, The Social System
I was a romantic youth and I poured my twenties into a lot of transient things. All the truest feelings of life’s magic I found then had came from the things I'd built with people I loved. The wonder of reciprocity and shared endeavour that comes from chucking your oars in with others.The chance to make music and the chance to build a life with someone - these things are what lit up my life, and I put everything else aside chasing them.
But neither enterprise survived the decade and as I felt coughed out into geriatric millenialhood like a chewed lump of gristle, I couldn’t help but feel I’d fucked everything up. What I’d chosen to make important in life had been and gone like a boat I’d never boarded.
I was reading about Robert Owen when I wrote Call of the Mild. His New Harmony project, the pioneering, utopian settlement built in Indiana that collapsed within a few short years.
Utopians who ran away into the hills of life and their vain attempts to live outside the norm. People who found ways to bury their idealism and their values in the world, the way a squirrel hides its acorn. I would imagine how it felt to be as devout and unflinching and full of courage in conviction, and also feel so aside from the world around you.
Call Of The Mild is a jam for those of us so in love with that magic of common purpose that we thrust it into situations where it doesn’t exist. I don’t know what to do about that but to prepare for a beating. There have been many times in my life where I’ve dumbly and credulously filled my head with the lemming dreams of sharing, sacrifice, reciprocation and instead found an arsekicking, head in hands, wondering when I’d finally wise up.
When I feel vain and self indulgent and think of my own nature and the way my heart has compelled me to act, I think of the way an insect smashes itself into cinders against a lightbulb thinking it will find the moon. A leg lost here, a forewing there, an antenna… crashing again and again. Certain that one final perfect heave-ho will send its body through the scorching pain of the white hot filament and out: into the bright night sky somewhere beyond.
