Surrounded by Heads and Bodies

Over the weekend I finished reading the monster that is Infinite Jest (IJ). This book will circulate in my mind for far longer than it took me to slog through its one thousand pages, which were anything but a breeze.

Many readers can access IJ’s prose. Some may shy away from its length, but that too is not its primary intimidation. Instead the book confronts the uncomfortable reality that is everyday American life, which most prefer to not acknowledge.

I knew Matty Healy, the frontman of one of my favorite bands, The 1975, is a big fan of IJ. I recall an interview where Matty says that art, sex, drugs, and religion are one and the same – ways of losing yourself.

Matty exposes his struggles with addiction in the band’s third album A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships (ABIIOR), particularly in the tracks “It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)” and “Surrounded by Heads and Bodies.” In fact, the latter’s title derived from IJ’s first line: “I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies.” Here, Matty is in rehab to overcome his heroin addiction like Hal goes to rehab for his marijuana addiction.

I never understood why Matty chose such an inhumane sounding title for an amnesiac ballad dedicated to a woman, Angela, with whom he connected in therapy. This makes better sense after reading IJ.

An almost unavoidable tenet of American life is that there is no better good than your own good. There is nothing greater than oneself. The more obvious example of this in IJ is Hal Incandenza, a prodigy attending an elite tennis academy, E.T.A., who alongside other students vies for a top spot on national junior tennis rankings. Those who do not mentally or physically crumble beneath the prep school’s pressures are promised fame and riches in “The Show,” or professional tennis. Hal, though he temporarily finds refuge in smoking marijuana, cannot overcome his mental degradation and hyperfocus on the self thanks to the system in which he lives.

I think “surrounded by heads and bodies” hints at this phenomenon. I do not suggest that drug addicts are selfish. However, American culture perpetuates a self-centered hopelessness that discourages realizing that everyone else around you is human, just like you, and encourages you to obey every impulse until you are no longer the consumer but rather become consumed by some addiction, whether that be narcotics, money, power, pleasure, or whatever else. Ironically, the connection between Matty and Angela is perhaps an exception:

I was reading that [Infinite Jest] when I was in rehab. There was no one there. It was me and my nurses, who’d come in and check on me, and then Angela, miles away . . . we rarely saw each other apart from some shared therapy, and she was such a beautiful, lovely woman. I felt a real connection and an empathy with her. And we soon found out that we lived on the same road in Manchester! And we were in Barbados. It was crazy man. One road in the whole world.

Although Matty mentions the book’s influence only on that track, IJ seeps into the album as a whole, as The 1975 grapple with a reality that Wallace feared in both crude and subtle ways. Entertainment and addiction, two of book’s biggest themes, are not mutually exclusive in IJ or ABIIOR. Surely they harmonize in “The Man Who Married A Robot,” a story narrated by Siri about a man who falls in love with the Internet. But less obvious is “TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME,” an upbeat tune that confronts relationships in the digital age but also reminds me how department stores play fun pop tracks to help us escape our own thoughts in public spaces.

I admit a lot of my blog posts discuss technology and consumerism, and I often repeat myself, but they are very interesting topics. As a music junkie, I think a lot of artists address these themes, maybe even more than I realize. I can immediately find other examples, such as “[Premade Sandwiches]” by Glass Animals or “On The Luna” by Foals.

I am so excited for live music to return. That is my escape.