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Matthew Good's "Weapon" reminds me of music's
ambiguous power, when a song can embody my most severe personal
tragedy and still be written by someone that I don't much care
for. Matthew Good was born in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
and has grown up in the area; he now resides in downtown Vancouver
just minutes from the suburb he started his life in. He has been
nothing but nurtured by the local music scene but seems anything
but grateful.
"Weapon" was released as a single before his debut
solo album Avalanche was released on March 4, 2003. Good
and co-director Ante Kovac were nominated and won a Canadian Juno
Award for Best Video of the Year for "Weapon". Ante Kovac received
the award alone on stage for two reasons. The first being that
Matthew Good has banned the Juno's and second as Good later stated
in his blog, he fired Kovac half way through making the video.
He describes Kovac's first edit as "far too standard, with gratuitous
and generic fades". So with the director gone, Matt went to video
editor J.D. Shaw in Toronto, his aim to reassemble the footage.
In the editing room, sharp scissors resulted in experiments with
overlayed text, stills and stock photos, breathing the life back
into the moving frames. Unsurprisingly, "Weapon" is his favourite
video. The song has also been played in individual television
episodes of "Queer as Folk", "Smallville" and "Alias".
Considering my disdain for Mr. Good it came as
a complete shock to me when "Weapon" so solidly encompassed everything
I was feeling over the sudden loss of a friend who took his own
life. On February 4, 2003 the day he died, "Weapon" was all over
the radio
The opening lyrics:
here by my side, an angel
here by my side, the devil
never turn your back on me
never turn your back on me again
here by my side, it's heaven
here by my side, you are destruction…
Hit me hard, I felt like my friend had used himself
as a 'Weapon'. The anger it evoked gave me a release for my screams
of anguish and forced feelings other than numbness to re-enter
my being. The fact that to me my friend had been an 'angel' someone
who showed belief in me, stuck by me and provided what I thought
was true friendship but turned into a 'devil' of sorts when the
hard reality that I did not know him at all slammed my conscious
mind. He knew I suffered from depression, he knew I had been in
the hospital over a botched suicide attempt of my own. HE KNEW.
He told no one of his depression. You want a bullet through the
heart? That was pretty close. I learned that I know no one but
myself. That was a hard yet very important lesson. I listened
to this song constantly after his death. I'd slam my fists into
the sofa and cry, muffle my screams with a pillow and just force
myself to feel it all- as if trying to hide it would have helped
anyway. After three years I'd love to say things have changed
but I still NEED this song as a personal reminder, a reminder
of what we are all capable of. A reminder of a memory I wish I
didn't have.
I don't own any Matthew Good or Matthew Good Band
CDs but this one song will be part of my library till my days
are over. I would never dis the use of his voice and his writing
to bring awareness to what is happening in the world- to each
their own- but for the most part I do think he is completely full
of shit and full of himself.
I had a hard time finding quotes that didn't in
my opinion show just how big of an ass he can be whether he claims
he just loves to fuck with the media or not, but I did find this
one, on a fan site in relation to "Weapon" and for about two seconds
I liked him. I've tried to jump on the Matthew Good band wagon….oh
I've tried, but I just can't do it.
"Everyone has the potential to be a horror. So
don't turn your back on the reality that you could be one. Furthermore,
realize that those you consider dangerous are no different than
yourself. Everyone is a weapon in waiting. No one is exempt. Given
the nature of things these days, it seems that truth gets lost
at border crossings and airports and so forth. It shouldn't. We're
all equal in the evil and beauty we're capable of producing."
Copyright (c) 2006 EstellasRevenge.com and the respective authors
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