Spring Offensive – The First of Many Dreams About Monsters
Psychologists, philosophists and the wise people of our world have spent decades, centuries even, delving into the very mind of grief. They question it, second guess it and try to master it. Spring Offensive know this isn’t possible. Grief is a free demon that will haunt us all at least once in our lives. Instead, this band has created homage, no, that’s not the right word… a map. A map of grief that is as monstrous as it is beautiful.
Based on Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ 5-stage grief cycle this mega-single touches on each stage a person goes through during the loss of a loved one – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. But don’t be fooled into thinking this is just a copy and paste song out of a textbook with a dash of research into the author. The First of Many Dreams About Monsters is, as the band say, about the act of imagining grief. A concept that is quite terrifying. Stop right now and imagine losing someone you love. Could you even escalate that feeling into words? This single is a 13-minute harrowing insight into that single thought and it is quite incredible.
Denial, the first part of this song, is not as you would expect a monologue of losing someone but rather about an intruder coming into a grieving person’s home and trying to steal this grief away, may it be a picture, a diary or anything that holds a memory, in order to make it their own. As the lyrics touch on, “he says he’s an artist, he says he’s an artist/Who will take what I miss and make it live through/bursts of noise”, Spring Offensive touch on the discomfort of making this concept single and the idea of claiming to know how someone feels as they grieve.
But like most great works of art Denial can be interpreted in many ways and it is interesting to look at the lyrics in a slightly different manner. Rather than taking this as the band stealing a picture as a way of describing grief what if we looked at it as a serial killer memorising a kill. Serial killers notoriously consider themselves to be artists and their victims mere pieces of their artwork. They keep trophies of their kills – a picture, a piece of clothing or jewellery – that will let them relive their victim’s terrified state and their family’s grief. And where do most end up? In a mental hospital, “He wants to feel the stretch so raise him up and tie him down”, sounds rather like a hospital bed.
Something which is escalated as we slip into Anger, where the only lyrics – “petrified in a lab room bell jar” – could subtly point to the infamous The Bell Jar, a novel by Sylvia Plath before she committed suicide. For those not familiar with the plot it follows a woman haunted by her monsters including her time in a mental hospital. Then switch it back to look at the cycle author Elisabeth Kubler-Ross who made the cycle after having four abortions. Sylvia Plath’s protagonist was terrified of giving birth. Bell jars and there use in medicine. The connotations are endless.
You could interrupt the lyrics of this masterpiece in a thousand different ways. It’s what makes it so epic. Every listen is like a key, it opens the door just that little bit further. May it be the little hints of sonograms in Bargaining or timber frames in Depression.
Well let’s just chuck all the textual analysis window. Do you know why? The First of Many Dreams about Monsters is a musically superb, vocally amazing 13-minute song. Every second of this song is tailored to creating a spark of monstrous grief in your ears. Call it music or art but either way you can’t help but call it great.
You can download the song for free here.
