On Mac’s third album, we see him delve into issues surrounding his sobriety (or lack thereof), tackling his depression, becoming a better person, and the pitfalls and superficial nature of fame. The latter of these topics, rather obviously, is something Miller grapples with on ‘Brand Name’, providing his take on the world’s obsession with socially desirable brands and the need to impress others.
The chorus sees Miller contemplating just how big a part of society branding has become, illustrating its pervasion in popular culture. Both the song and the album is an exercise in Mac freeing himself from the shackles of commercialism inextricably linked with fame and celebrity, denouncing their hold on him (“I got brothers, I don’t need no friends, My shoes off I’m comfortable, I’m chilling, smoking weed again”) and finding his peace in simplicity.
Mac also touches on his journey, using the area codes from both his hometown of Pittsburgh (412) and his current residence in LA (310). He juxtaposes the difference in his surroundings by comparing his basement to ‘them yellow brick roads’, alluding to the his belief that the path he is on will ultimately end in his fulfilment.
‘Brand Name’ and indeed ‘GO:OD AM’ sees the emergence of a more self-aware, mature Miller, especially when compared with his two previous albums ‘Watching Movies with the Sound Off’ and ‘Blue Slide Park’. Lyrics like “I work harder than anybody you know, I’m done with tricks, don’t need no money to blow” show the focus he has on his craft, realising that money is merely a by-product of his hard work and not something to hang his hat on. The track itself features melancholic instrumentals (a feature of the album), paired with chilled, ambling kicks and snares, providing Mac a platform on which to switch up his flows on multiple occasions – something he does with ease. ‘Brand Name’ is a song i have constantly found myself returning to as it establishes a fresh but unmistakably-mac take on fame and its pitfalls, illustrating his versatility, growth, and perspective.
The penultimate track on what was to be his fifth and final project, ‘2009’ sees a pensive Mac revisit what life was like for him before his breakout 2010 mixtape, ‘K.I.D.S‘. Accompanied by some beautiful orchestral sections, a laid-back beat, and a nostalgic piano sample, Mac reflects on the lessons he’s learned and his progression as both a person and an artist.
2009 was the year Mac released his first two mixtapes and was the final year before he began to garner mainstream attention, leaving him uncertain as to what the future may hold. Nine years on and a wiser, more jaded Miller has come to realise what the industry and the game is all about.
Mac has come to realise that he needs to do things in his own time; work at his own pace, focus on himself. By comparing himself to others and looking elsewhere for happiness, Miller realises that he’s not actually living, resulting in an existence that he couldn’t even classify as a life. Instead of burdening himself with bad reviews, negative press, and what other people think of him, he has his own cross to bear and that’s what’s most important.
On what has proven to be both personally, critically, and universally Mac Miller’s most polished, complete, and mature album, ‘2009’ is the standout track for me. As someone who has tracked Mac through his entire career, I have been able to witness his evolution as both an artist and a person. ‘2009’ showcases both of these aspects as Miller is able to take a step back and acknowledge his shortcomings, strengths, and missteps in a philosophical look at life five studio albums and 12 mixtapes later. A more introspective cut from his fifth album ‘Swimming’ (and indeed his entire catalogue), ‘2009’ sees Mac’s crooning coupled with soaring instrumental sections that harken back to a simpler time, inviting the listener to reminisce, as Miller does, about a time before his fame.
Much like the song What Can I Do If the Fire Goes Out? This song is much more upbeat in the tempo, but as Le’aupepe explains before he performed it at Splendour in the Grass earlier this year, this song is for “those who are staring down the bottom of a barrel of losing someone”, so touches on his divorce with his ex-wife, but also spends the song telling the audience that there is so much more to live for in life.
The first verse is mainly Le’aupepe trying to encourage this listener that even if he can’t give a conclusion to them now, there are still aspects to look forward to and positively in life.
Le’aupepe is telling his audience that, yes life might be a bit messed up right now with no real end in sight or a goal in mind and if he could help find their way, he would. However, it’s okay to not know what you’re doing or where you are going; he is a part of the confusion himself. There’s always time to figure it out.
The second verse is just continuing with the message portrayed in the first voice, Le’aupepe is saying that, yes our time is short, but you must keep moving forward, forget up the pain and the hurt, you’ll be able to move through and keep going forward.
I really enjoy these lyrics, because it shows that the lyricist isn’t so focused on what happened throughout his life, he is incredibly well read and can relate literature from any era back to his life. These particular lyrics are based on the story of when “Nero fiddled when Rome burned”, many people believe Nero deliberately burnt Rome, so it can be interpreted that even though the singer creates his own problems, he’ll distract himself and ignore the situation.
The closing verse says a lot to the listener, it’s almost like Le’aupepe is saying that drug and alcohol intake can be okay, in certain aspects. Explaining that he spent most of his sister’s wedding stoned implies he was not sober for a very important event in his life. However, the closing lines are trying to push home that there is so much more to live for in life, you could relate these last lines back to the movie ‘Trainspotting’, referencing the famous monologue at the start of the movie as the protagonist lists better ways to spend life than on drugs, kind of what Le’aupepe does here.
Achilles Come Down is possibly my favourite song on this album, maybe even my favourite by Gang of Youths of all time. The song begins with a haunting cello solo and is mainly focused on strings throughout the story where we see Le’aupepe attempt to talk down the character from jumping off a roof, which is beautiful intertwined with his intrusive thoughts trying to get him to jump, which the vocalist is desperately telling Achilles that they are lies. It is also is quite a long song, so the analysis will be a little bit longer than the others.
The opening lines of the song are Le’aupepe talking to the character Achilles telling him to get off the roof and not to jump, which could be a reference to the signers own suicide attempt or the character Achilles from Homer’s odyssey.
In this verse, the singer begins pleading with Achilles, explaining that he means much more to him than he thinks, implying that from a youthful pact of sticking together and he hasn’t forgotten that, as there is no Le’aupepe without Achilles. Then telling Achilles to solider on and get down from the roof as there is so much more to live for and jumping would not be worth it.
The chorus connects the story of Achilles with Le’aupepe’s personal life; the character of Achilles is in love with a character Patroclus, when she dies in the poem Achilles is obviously distressed, this is where it really refers to the singer’s personal life and his ex-wife and her battle with cancer. The final line of the chorus is a message of hope, which Le’aupepe was able to heal and rise above the pain, so Achilles will be able to do the same.
The next chorus takes a drastic turn as the singers voice is now slightly distorted, which implies that he is now singing from the point of view of Achilles intrusive thoughts:
This changes the whole tempo of the song and really digs in deep at how intrusive thoughts can effect someone’s thought process. Even though Achilles has the singer talking him down with positivity he can’t help but think negatively in the moment, with his thoughts telling him he’s just making it all up and may as well just end it now.
In this verse it reverts back to the singer talking to Achilles, the opening line could be a metaphor for Le’aupepe’s life as he was drunk on the night he tried to kill himself, as spoken about in the Magnolia blog. He then closes out the verse by saying, that there might not be a meaning that you can see right now, but you will find one it’s not worth wasting yourself, or jumping off this roof.
The next verse I personally think is one of the best verses I’ve ever listened to, what we hear is the intrusive thoughts and Le’aupepe is arguing with each other about what Achilles should do:
This chorus is the climax of the whole situation and comes to a battle between Achilles own thoughts and his friend down below, both trying to convince him to do what they want. The ending line shows that his intrusive thoughts are adamant that he kill himself that night, however the singer is not relenting, and reassuring Achilles that he is talking to him and won’t go anywhere.
The final pre-chorus is Le’aupepe showing Achilles that there is so much more the live for, throw yourself into the unknown could be just trying something different, the band relocated to the USA to follow their music careers; it could be in reference to this. The closing line is just saying to Achilles there’s more positives to look at in life then the negatives. I think this implies that the singer was successful is talking down Achilles. But, this could be the most haunting song I have ever listen to, with the heavy focus on the cello and the juxtaposition verse, I think this is their most amazing song.
With a song mainly focused on an upbeat tempo and the instrumental side of things, there’s not many lyrics to interpret, however, the chorus again can be interpreted in two separate ways:
The fire can be referred to the loss of his Christian faith, as Christians will refer to them being ‘on fire’ when they feel a strong Christian faith and in his situation he can feel it going out. Although, this can also be referred to as the fire or the flame in a relationship and what to do when the spark starts to fall out of a relationship and begins to fail or become stressful. The final line of the chorus again can be interpreted as both, how can he live without his Christian faith or how can he live with his first love?
A song off the same album as Magnolia is Knuckles White Dry, which is another heart breaking, slow piano ballad written about his then-wife’s cancer battle and the stress it takes out on everyone surrounded by the horrible illness.
These are the opening lyrics to the song and it already starts to hit home within the second line, Le’aupepe’s then-wife was fighting stage four cancer at the time. This verse highlights the singers stress and disbelief that something like this could happen to them, but Le’aupepe tries to throw his support behind her, saying that he doesn’t care if it kills him, he’ll make sure she will survive it.
These lines are heart breaking and sum up the uselessness that people can feel when a disease is taking over a person’s body. And the absolute helplessness can be heard in the final line, when all Le’aupepe can do is ask if it’ll help, when he’s sure it won’t.
The opening lines of this verse is something a lot of people probably don’t think about, especially in this day and age of social media, where well wishes can come across as insincere when they don’t really understand the weight of the situation. The strangers who Le’aupepe is referring to are the doctors, who are injecting his ex-wife with all kinds of drugs to curtail the cancer growth. Le’aupepe does align himself and believe in Jesus, which is why he is questioning ‘where is our miracle in this situation?’
The chorus reinstates Le’aupepe’s faith and hope during this chemotherapy, stating that they will surrender no part of their love to the skin or the lungs, as his ex-wife was diagnosed with melanoma, which eventually spread to her lungs. They will continue to fight this horrible disease, day in and day out. An absolute heart breaking song with an incredibly strong piano riff.
The first song I’ll be talking about in this series of blogs based on Gang of Youths is the song that first gained them national attention in Australia. Lead singer, David Le’aupepe begun writing music while his then wife was battling cancer and while he himself was spiralling down a depression, which led to their divorce and . These themes really set the tone for most of the music Gang of Youths write and perform; hauntingly beautiful ballads.
The pre chorus starts to introduce an element of self-awareness is Le’aupepe’s actions as his friends and band mates had called the police on him after he wasn’t answering their phone calls.
Forever lucky that the police found him in time and were able to talk him out of whatever he was planning on doing that night, which leads to the chorus and explains the turning point in that night for Le’aupepe.
This is a somewhat happy ending to the disastrious night, after realising that there’s nothing the afterlife can offer him, Le’aupepe decides to stagger home and sat in front of his dad magnolia tree, asking to be shown the light and how he’s ready to kick some ass tonight, which is referring to him going to rehab in order to sort out his mental illness.
Le’aupepe did stay sober and refers to the date of the Third of June in the song, which fans refer to as ‘Magnolia Day’, the day that Le’aupepe overcame and survived his mental illness.
Musical Musings 