"Don't believe everything that you breathe"
Chapter 6 : Boogie Nights of the Living Dead: The Moral Vision of
Beck
While many songwriters make their living by taking everyday sayings and copying them directly into the chorus of a radio single, Beck invents his own sayings (loosely composed of old ones) appropriate to the madness of the age. He will use any means at his disposal to name, mock, and rearrange the dissembling spirits of our day and render them ridiculous by giving the forces of darkness such titles as "stereopathetic soul manure" and "a bozo nightmare." His lyrics reflect a perpetual apprehension which refuses to be paralyzed or silenced and, instead, employs mockery and outlandish imagery as a form of hopeful protest. On the anthems of Mellow Gold, the party summons of Odelay, the haunted world of Mutations, and the mad, comic nightmare of Midnite Vultures, we're persuaded to look twice at our own troubled, groaning terrain. In a world of media saturation which transforms human affection into something groping and soulless, Beck's swiftly evolving metaphors refuse submission to the manipulative orchestrations of culture and form an overall pattern of alternative clarity and mindfulness against disharmony and fear.