Xanecstacy - Story Behind The Song

The kids are on the street

Tuition bills aren’t cheap

Painkillers and weed

Xanecstacy

North Face, Patagonia

Hope your daddy knows someone

Vegan, gluten free pizza

Snowflakes stab your back and run

Bitch in angry mobs

Expect a well-paid job (expect a well-paid hobby)

It’s a blood test, not swab

Clean dealers are cops

…

I remember learning about the “aesthetic movement,” in high school. It was an early 19th century movement brought to the forefront by writers, like Oscar Wilde, who would write or create art “for art’s sake.” No politics, no hidden meaning or agendas.

A lot of work from the aesthetic movement is also known to be extremely cynical. So, while this song may sound dark and the lyrics may seem like social or political commentary, that’s not the case. The lyrics are actually meant to be interpreted as a morbid, tongue in cheek joke. Like a Coen Brothers’ movie, only at surface value. I’ve grown tired of cheesy records with out-of-place political commentary (no, RATM does not fall into this category. They rock. I don’t really take much weight into their political commentary when screaming ‘Fuck You! I Won’t Do What You Tell ME!’ anyway. It’s just fun, empowering, and a good reason to mosh). I’d lose faith in myself if I was trying to portray a political stance in my lyrics. From where I stand, people shouldn’t listen to musicians for political advice. To me, music is an escape, not a medium in which to exploit or solicit my listener. Especially with politics being so divisive and explosive no matter which side of the fence the listener is on.

The original genesis for this song came about 5 years ago when I was studying abroad in Madrid, Spain. I remember sitting in my apartment trying to study for a history final. I wasn’t getting much done because the material was somewhat dry (Feudalism) and I was texting a different friend every five minutes. About an hour into studying, I heard an ambulance siren speed by my window, which caused me to take a study break, despite my lack of productivity to that point.

Everyday in American news in the Fall of 2014, it seemed like some child was either being murdered or doing the murdering. St. Louis was on edge because of the Michael Brown shooting and tensions seemed to be swelling rather than subsiding. Therefore, I got this eerie sensation thinking about how incendiary social issues had become back home, and how helpless i was to seemingly watch a city I loved go up in flames. So, like many people who are emotionally drawn to a chilling historical event, I began writing. Pencil to paper. No conscious thought. Only the sound of the ambulance siren.

…

“The kids are out on the streets tonight,

Searching for a lonely lover that won’t put up a fight

In a back alley where you can claim that the love is true,

But really she’s just afraid of you as you are

And when covering her mouth you can smell the cheap perfume,

That your mommy wore when she walked out on you,

On on similar night was a sinking moon,

That was just afraid of you as you are

And now you let her sing as your finish your song,

About the sweet revenge of the abandoned son,

Who found the perfect companion on this familiar night,

The kids are on the street tonight,

Yeah the kids are on the street tonight”

…

It’s a haunting, graphic poem that seemingly was written by a psychopath. Sigmund Freud would probably love it.

Luckily, the finished version of Xanecstacy takes a much less graphic and serious approach.

After coming up with the instrumental melody for the song, I established a vocal melody. At that point, I still needed lyrics. For some reason I remembered this poem that I had written in Spain four years ago and was drawn to the opening line. I disregarded the rest of the poem due to its grim tone plus the fact that I preferred it as a stand alone poem.

From there, I took a similar approach to writing the original poem and just put pen to paper and tried to disregard as much conscious thought as possible. 

I immediately loved the end result.

Upon conclusion, I could easily piece together where each part of the song came from. To me, while disjointed, it seemed like a cynical, half joking snapshot of my life at the time. As previously mentioned, I was working as the manager of a women’s outerwear section retail store. The the “North Face, Patagonia” line was just commentary on people’s needless materialistic desires, especially when it was my job to get customers to indulge those desires as a salesperson. “Tuition bills aren’t cheap” and “hope your daddy knows someone” relate to my frustration with how, despite education costing so much, I could only seem to get a decent job offer through my parent’s networks, which seems to be getting more and more common nowadays for college graduates. Or at least getting financial help from parents. On a similar note, the “Bitch in angry mobs, expect a well-paid job (expect a well paid hobby)” lines were just cynical commentary for those kids who didn’t have to suffer or work hard to get where they want to be in life. Of course it becomes even more ridiculous to make this comparison due to the fact that, admittedly, I come from a family of wealth.

The lines “vegan, gluten free pizza” and “snowflakes stab your back and run” are also tongue in cheek comments made towards those in my generation that have everything handed to them. Once again, the ironic part is that you could argue that I’m part of that movement too. I mean, my parents paid for my education. Granted, I did work hard in school to get a generous scholarship. I had a weighted GPA of over 4.0 and had solid test scores, but I’m still a dime a dozen in that regard.

Pretty much every other line in the song relates to the opioid crisis we were, and still are, in. Every time you turned on a TV it seemed like more and more people had overdosed on an opiate or some kind of pain medication. It had become a crisis that was being brought to the forefront of the news media. I really didn’t have any type of personal stake in the battle. I will say that being in college at the time, you’d see substances getting tossed around at parties. Especially Xanax. I feel like that’s pretty common for all colleges though. 

One time I did take a hydrocodone before drinking at a party, but it’s not like it was life altering. I had the prescription for my recent wisdom teeth surgery, and my mouth was killing me. So I popped one or two and then drank the rest of the night during the party we were hosting at our apartment at SLU. I don’t remember it outrageously affecting me. 

My girlfriend at the time, Morgan, would attest that it did. She claimed that when 1:30 rolled around, I looked like a zombie leaning up against the wall struggling to keep my eyes open.

I remember the whole night, so the truth is that I was exhausted, but there were still guests in the room. I didn’t want to be one of the hosts that went to bed before the party actually ended. Either way, she got her wish and convinced me to go to bed. That’s the one and only time I have ever been prescribed a painkiller. Not too exciting. I wasn’t trying to use it recklessly anyway. My mouth hurt. Granted, it seems like a ridulously dumb decision on my part to mix those two things knowing what I know now about the dangerous side effects from painkillers, especially when mixed with other mood changing chemicals.

Anyway, I liked the lines relating to opiate addiction because it gave the song a more cynical tone.