Side B

A Journey Through Pain, Acceptance, and the Return to Self

Written by: Syn Devereaux

We all have that song or album that we go to when we want to light up and melt into the floorboards– whether literally or figuratively. You drop the needle or plug in and become one with the song, the record, the artist. I have a list of songs like these, and am adding one more: Fly.

Track seven opens with the most minute, delicate details you almost miss– the rewinding of a tape and a whispered four count. It sets the stage for the softness and is carried throughout the song. The guitars layered and the synths. “I'm running through the snow again/ When will spring come again?/ I need the bloom” is the perfect start– it’s vulnerable and aching, letting us in on a childhood memory (maybe) or a metaphor for being out in the cold and needing warmth. It’s more than just waiting for the seasons to change outside– it's internal, deep in the marrow.

“I followed every winding road/ And the path it took me to/ No, I don't look back in anger/ Do you?” God. What a line. A line deeply relatable and personal to me. It’s easy to get existential post break up. I do it multiple times a day, even still. It’s rationalizing what happened, saying, “HEY! I did what I was told and I still ended up HERE!? What the fuck?!” As time goes on the anger quiets and the tone shifts to something a little more accepting, saying, “Okay, I get it now. I followed the path. It got me here and I’m actually okay with who I am and where I’m at. I’ve let the anger go.” I still go back and forth between the two constantly, but land in the latter more often than not.

At 1:34, we finally have the big drop. If the first half of the album we were sitting on the edge of the cliff, the crux if you will, we’ve finally leapt and are in full free fall now. Flying away and choosing ourselves. A brave thing to do when you’re a self proclaimed people pleaser. You can hear the surrender in his voice, the lyrics and music. It gives Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of The Moon level of dreamy bliss, with equal parts Beatles.

At my first listening party, I wrote in shouty caps in my notes app, “CHARLIE AND THE CHICOLATE FACTORY VIBES?????” I shared this thought out loud with my listening pals and they all thought I was crazy, but at 3:03, with the layered synths moving from ear to ear, I stand by it. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory vibes, Gene Wilder version. When they’re in the tunnel– it's that level of surrealism and psychedelic soft rock making me feel like I should be floating somewhere in space.

If Fly had you in free-fall, then Charlie’s Garden has your feet planted and grounded. (Oh, how the garden jokes write themselves!) Right out the garden gate, we’re rooted with the heavy Beatles piano chords. Sonic easter eggs like the wurlitzer (screams!), piccolo, trumpet, organ, and so much more layered so deliciously. My pre-listen prediction reads, “Beatles–esque. Whispery. Something you’d play on a spring/summer day in the garden. acoustic guitar”. Damn, did I nail that or what?!

“How can I convince myself?/ Convince myself to stay?/ That work just won't do itself/ That can wait another day” The garden — Charlie’s Garden — feels like a metaphor for that liminal place of security. A sanctuary, but also a trap. You're safe here, but nothing really grows unless you tend to it, and you can only stall real life for so long. It’s a place where you go to collect yourself and figure out your next steps. The growth is grueling, like in Fly– “I'm running through the snow again/ When will spring come again?/ I need the bloom”– the garden is the slow pace of fall– the death and decay moving into winter— the hibernation and introspection moving into spring, the budding and full bloom. Finally.

We all have a Charlie’s Garden and thank god for those places and people who see us in all our glorious mess. We come into the garden barely alive, hanging on by a thread and leave in bloom. This theme of leaning on your people is so apparent throughout the album and so fucking relatable. The growing pains of the seasons changing are worth the flowers in the garden, or, the person you’ve become on the other side of your arrival.

In January, I was lucky enough to snag a ticket to Djo’s surprise Brooklyn show where he played, Gap Tooth Smile live, followed by a cover of Gasoline by the Haim sisters (I don’t want to talk about that. Not yet.) Oh, what a line up that was! Going from Gap Tooth to Gasoline was honestly criminal and I’m still not sure how I survived that. I’ll spare you the shouty caps text I sent to Mavis during– it’s probably NSFW. Phew. Anyway…

But can I just say, what.a.fucking.BOP!? In my a-side article, I wrote that Link had me feeling, “Again: slutty. Slutty in a way you can still bring home to mom and dad or even your grandma.” The drums set the pace and the scratchy guitars set the mood. It’s giving tasteful rockstar girlfriend with a penchant for mischief. Hell, I’m in love with this girl– whoever she is. Maybe she’s me– I did have a massive gap in my teeth growing up; one I was teased relentlessly for– or this imaginary girl I should say, lives in all of us a little. I know this summer, the world better watch out because me, with this song and my little red cowgirl boots– we’re about to be unfuckingstoppable.

It’s a perfect reprieve from where we’ve been so far on this album. It’s the wishful romanticization of someone we’re all looking for in a partner– whether it's ephemeral moments at the bar or something a little more longterm. Hearing this song live and not knowing where we were going while listening to it was a wild ride– but when we got to the bridge? And the counting? 29, 29, 29, “IT’S NOT FAIR! (NO!) IT’S LOVE!” The crowd was electric– completely abuzz with something none of us knew we needed. It’s a feeling that’s hard to find, harder to replicate and even more so, harder to let go of.

Going from Gap Tooth Smile straight into Golden Line is a diabolical choice and I’ll be sending my therapy invoice to you personally, Mr. Keery. Owwee-zowwee. It’s like, “hey, yeah– lets get absolutely wild with these guitars and then BOOM! Sad piano and strings and that backing vocals??? Yeah, no. Not.fucking.cool.dude. It’s a love letter to your parents in three minutes thirty seconds and as a self proclaimed orphan, I absolutely folded like a lawn chair at that listening party.

Going into it, I knew it was going to be heavy and about his parents and was going to wreck me. There is no preparation to see the writing so plainly written on the wall in wanting to make your parents/family proud. It’s a feeling I am well intimately familiar with, yet I am on the opposite side of the spectrum. Where Joe grew up with unconditional love, mine was very conditional. Performing and begging for scraps to make them “proud”. Because if they were proud, I was loved. The juxtaposition of my experience and his, is the type of thing that rips the air straight out of your lungs because all you’ve wanted was that same safe place to land in childhood.

I was absolutely not prepared for the lyrics, “Life can bring you down/ The world can be so cruel/ But I still trust in love/ I find that trust in you/ Maybe you can show me how/ My intention was to make you proud/ Yes, it's true, I do it all for you/ You've got a golden line/ I try to live up to” This is the pulse of the entire album and makes me violently weep alongside the strings and choral arrangement. I swear I’m fine, I just have an entire tree in my eyes. This song sits on a nerve I didn’t know was still so exposed. It aches in ways I still find when I listen to it (which is why I avoid it if I can).

That said, we’ve hit the emotional crescendo and still have to land the plane with two more songs. So buckle up, because the emotional turbulence here is real. Ending Golden Line and straight into Back On You seems like a happier shift. Until you listen to the words and then yeah, right there again wishing you had something you never did. Hearing, “Dry those eyes, hanging on/ Through the tears, sing yourself a song/ Come back home/ Buddy, I remember who you are/ Who you are” from a fucking children’s choir right after I quite literally was drying my eyes– again: diabolical choice, Mr. Keery. Add it to my emotional tab.

Fun fact about me, I have a younger brother. Sparks notes version is we don’t talk and we’ve had a very yo-yo relationship for about the past ten years. We both had a rough childhood and that’s bled heavily into adulthood. So you can imagine how hard the gut punch hit with– as if the choir wasn’t enough– then this lyric lands like a sucker punch to the ribs. “I've known my sisters for a lifetime/ I count my lucky stars that I have them/ 'Cause everyday, they're a lifeline/ An inspiration just to be a better man, that's the truth/ I'd lay my life down on the line for you, that's the truth, yeah/ Sisters made a better brother”. My palms and sleeves are soaked from wiping away the continued stream of tears, here Joey Boi. Fuuuuuuuuuuck.

If Golden Line was the pulse of the album, Back On You is the bleeding, beating heart of it all. The support system of family– chosen and otherwise– being the balm, the crutch to heartache. The thread and needle stitching you back together after absolutely falling apart into a million pieces. You can hear the stitches tightening in every beat, every chord, every guitar rip. “You're nursing black and blues/ Well, there's that smile/ Oh, it's just a missing tooth/ 'Cause you believe in me/ I'm leaning back on you”. You can see– and hear– in real time, the black and blue fading, the smile return, even if there is a missing tooth. That missing tooth screams, “I went to hell, but my people brought me back. I’m here and I don’t care how rough I look. I fought for my place in this world. To survive this.”

I relate admittedly, way too much to this section. Throughout my own post-break up journey, I also heavily leaned on my people– my chosen family. I wouldn’t be who I am or where I am without that support. Having it has made me a better woman, a better sister, even if it’s just to my chosen family. It makes sense that his tour is called, Back On You Tour– whilst touring with Post Animal, his “brothers”. The song is a bloodied triumph of coming back to yourself and leaning on those you love. No notes.

Now we’re in the final stretch with track twelve: Crux. Opening with, “There's a crux to everything/ Not everybody’s contemplating it/ Only you unsatisfied/ I wonder who is on this island with me?” Me. I’m on the island, just on the other side, somewhere lost with my head in the sand. I’ve spent the last two years contemplating my own personal crux. The endings and beginnings born from it and yeah, I’ll say it’s left me very unsatisfied at times, but when you circle it back to my chosen family who were there to stitch me back, moving to the east coast, or all the breadcrumbs I’ve followed along the way, the duality balances precariously on the tight rope of my life. Maybe I’m not so unsatisfied with it after all. Stay tuned.

Slowly, but oh-so-fucking-surely, I have been getting back to myself, my heart. The things that were once weaponized against me for decades– not just the catalytic person (hello, ex-situationship), but the very cloth of people I was cut and made from. Always too much or too little, too loud, too intense– yet, still never enough. It hasn’t been until I landed in my own personal Charlie’s Garden (New Jersey), that I’ve really started to feel myself getting back to the person I’ve always known was there and wanted to be– but was too afraid to. Always shrinking, making myself less or watered down to fit into peoples lives or narratives.

“Something special's happening/ You stop to think it's all but over/ Maybe head games aren’t for free/ And confidence ain't overbearing, no/ Steady hand not control/ Let it be what it is/ Lеt it out from inside you/ Get it back to your heart”–- the second verse really makes you stop and hit pause at what’s happening to you midway through the song– the heartbreak of it all, regardless of whether you’re out in the deep end or making your way back to shore.

The head games– they aren’t for free. The confusion is the price you pay for being stuck in the middle of a growing pain. The resignation of “steady hand not control/let it be what it is/ let it out from inside you” is the final surrender to the powers that be. That we’re all a part of something much, much bigger than us. This surrender is backed musically at 1:55 to 2:21 with the continuous pounding of the piano, followed by the come down of the wurlitzer and steady drums. It’s such a beautiful translation of emotion to music.

Ending with a choral, “Get back, to your heart/ But only if you give it back again/ Get back to your heart/ Only if you give it back/ Get back to your heart/ Yeah, but only if you give it back again/ Get back to your heart”– it’s a call to action and it’s a call for hope. A far cry from the start of the album with Lonesome Is A State Of Mind. It’s once again emphasizing the cyclical nature of the song.

The repetition drives home the emotional intensity of the plea to connect — or even reconnect — on a deeper, more honest level. It’s almost as if the he’s stuck in this loop of emotional vulnerability, repeatedly asking for that return to authenticity and emotional openness, but it’s tied to mutual effort: "But only if you give it back again."

This album is deeply personal and profound in how honest it is. It’s a thesis on change– a well known theme throughout Djo’s discography. It’s a meditation on growing up and growing through the change, the pain, and still coming back stronger than ever. You can feel the transition from song to song and how the emotional baggage gets lighter and heavier and lighter again throughout. That makes it real. And that makes it worth listening to, top to bottom, over and over again.

At the beginning of the album, we’re on the edge of the cliff. Halfway through, we descend into free fall, only to land firmly on our feet. Albeit, bruised and a few broken bones, but a better person for it. I’m biased saying this, but this is a beautiful and raw mirror to the throes of life– regardless of what your job is, your gender, class, etc. Because again, “the crux isn’t picky. It hits you when it hits you– humbling you and knocking you flat on your face, knocking teeth out and scraping palms while you try and catch your fall. The Crux is unrelenting, whispering, ‘just trust me, you’ll be fine’. But if you’re lucky, the person it shapes you into is somebody fucking incredible.”