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Crux thoughts!
May. 5th, 2025 08:45 amSo now it's been out for a month I've collated a bunch of my deranged voice memos to myself about Djo's The Crux, specifically about the journey the album's track order goes on. I've cleaned it all up for coherency apart from Egg which is a direct transcript of what I rambled into my phone, exactly as Egg deserves.
[NB - when I get to Golden Line/Back On You/Crux there's some brief discussion of my menopause and mental health so if you're not in a place for that please feel free to skip]
I see it as an album divided into quarters - appropriately, as it's to a certain extent about a quarter-life crisis (292929) - about how you go through, get over and recalibrate big life events, the stuff we all go through that causes you to sit down and reassess everything.
So the first quarter - Lonesome Is A State Of Mind, Basic Being Basic and Link - is when you're still on the exit velocity, riding on the enorphins and adrenaline of knowing that The Incident(s) are over and thinking 'well, now we're in the next phase, we're moving on'.
time it takes an edge
grinds it clean
turns a scar to a seam
the idea that this will always have had an impact but I'm now at a point where I can look back on it, and very purposefully closing that chapter with show that kid to the door.
Which makes it such a hysterical, brilliant transition to have Lonesome showing that kid to the door only for Basic Being Basic to be that kid turning around in the doorway and saying 'actually you know what REALLY pisses me off?'. It's the sound of someone insisting whatever I'm totally over it when it's so laughably obvious they're not (I'm not funny). You can also view the transition as Lonesome setting up the themes and style of The Crux only for BBB to be Decide elbowing its way back onto the mic all I HADN'T FINISHED. Either way, making BBB the first single, our first introduction to this album is an absolute interrobang of a move, pure ?!
Then Link is the celebratory DONE WITH ALL OF THAT! BRING ON REST OF LIFE! through the metaphor of graduation, coming of age, being young, having the world at your feet. Our generation's gonna do things differently! Which makes releasing it in the year of our lord Twenty Twenty Fucking Five ironic to the point of being overtly politicaL. Because here's a very deliberate homage to that genre of WHOO! I'M A TEENAGER!! IN AMERICA!!! rock, with it's very overt nods to Summer of 69 and Jailbreak by Thin Lizzy (when he namechecked Jailbreak in that triple-j interview in February I did a heeeee! and then an even harder heeeee! when I heard the sirens on Link). But, like, how much fun are American teenagers having right now? 'Look out world, here we c-wait, this is shit.'
[further to the sirens on Link I love how absolutely on the nose all the homages in this album are. He's on the record as worrying it might be seen as too corny or retro so elects to lampshade it by dropping in the Jailbreak sirens or flat out using Beatles and Queen and Oasis song titles as lyrics. Basic Being Basic could even be seen as pre-empting the accusation of returning to a traditional rock sound after the synths of Decide. Are The Beatles cheugy? Discuss.]
Then in the second quarter, we move from saying 'wow that was some shit i went through but now I'm over it' to Potion, Delete Ya and Egg, which
SPOILER ALERT:
he was not over it.
he was still, quite literally, going through it.
Potion I have more to say about in the context of Gap Tooth Smile when I get there, but again, what a transition to have this pure, delicate song about the mundanities of long term love (leave on the light) then smash cut to Delete Ya, wallowing in all the horrible mundanities of a breakup. Songs you can't listen to anymore. Collecting all that stuff you forgot you left at their house. This hurts so much I would rather never have met you.
And then there's fucking Egg.
I have nothing coherent to say about Egg, I'm just pointing at Egg, saying FUCKING EGG!!!! WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!
It's like. Like. It's my second favourite song on the album, the reason it's not my first favourite is my first favourite, which we haven't got to yet, is something that just justjustjust hit me, I...there's context and emotional reasons. We'll get to it.
But if you said to me what direction I want Djo 4 to go in, it's Egg all the fucking way. Like.
I mean, Djo 4...if he wants to release another 12 retro rock bangers, I'm seated. If he wants to do a 45 minute long tone poem about his socks performed on nose flute and spoons, I'm seated. But what I really want is an entire album of Egg. Just a whole album of weird goblin man going out of his head yelling about the human condition. Yeah. That-yeah. Come on.
Just so much going on in that song, and it's so just all over the place, the weird, weird guitar noises (or are they violins? need to re-listen), just. The harmony on crimson and gold?! The way he pronounces self-satisfied. Just...what a song. What an absolutely banger song.
And I can totally get why they were going back and forth and back and forth until the last minute as to whether they would include it, because from a commercial point of view it is apart from the whole rest of the album, and it is Not Commercial in any way, shape or form. But, the album would not be complete without it, it would be...you have to have Egg in that record. You have to have that absolute meltdown crisis y'know long dark teatime of the soul kind of record, song in the middle of that album. That crescendoes into that repeat, that repeat, that repeat of the world the world the world all round where it just...and his voice disappears into that repeat, and it's - which is pure transcendentalism, the idea of becoming at one with the world, with the universe.
And it has to- the way it crashes to an absolute halt as well, the idea that you have to do the navel-gazing but you can't spend the rest of your life doing the navel-gazing, which we will get to in the third quarter. It has to come to that crashing halt, it's just. Wow. As I say, for personal reasons it's only my second favourite on the album but you can make a very very strong case for it being the best thing he's ever done.
[more coherent notes resume now]
I love that Crux is the final track of the album but Egg is the crux of the album, the midpoint, the apex of all the soul-searching that abruptly stops as you realise you can't just disappear into the ether thinking about all of this. Life has to go on.
And then the third quarter - Fly, Charlie's Garden, Gap Tooth Smile - you're into the rest and recovery after you've had that period of self examination, where you need to refresh, renew, replenish (to call back to Delete Ya). Fly, where you're still having the regrets but this chapter is through, we're moving on but we're still very tender and being gentle with ourselves.
Then Charlie's Garden is about the aspects of rest and self care that are fun! Hanging out with your friends! Playing with the dog! Being in a garden! Not wanting to work! FUN!!!! Can we just do this bit forever? Not get back to the day to day grind?
And Gap Tooth Smile - inspired by an idealised partner rather than a specific person - is about feeling ready to take your battered, patched-up heart and put it out there again, having the courage to do that. This is why Gap Tooth Smile and Potion are very much in dialogue, for me. They appear roughly at the same place on each side, one about that desperate, desperate yearning for your one true love, the other about letting go and trusting that when and if it happens, you'll be ready. You'll know it when you see it.
Also it took me three days of listens to notice that the transition of this section is like the passing of the seasons. Fly starts off Midwinter, in the snow, longing for Spring, then Charlie's Garden is Spring, and Gap Tooth Smile is pure Summer. Intentional? Who knows? Still glorious.
[Sidenote regarding the snow and running references in Fly, as a certified Gator Tillman enjoyer it is an absolute delight to me that wanting to be anywhere other than inside Gator's head contributed in some small way to making this album what it is. [sidenote to sidenote: will I ever be over him including Sam Spruell in his photos of people The Crux is about? No I will not] I know he says there's no bleedthrough of his two jobs, but...Bro, you were playing Gator and then on your downtime wrote a load of songs about how nice it is to have supportive parents and grow up surrounded by female influences and have lots of friends. I mean.]
Finally, the last quarter of Golden Line, Back On You and The Crux - you're back out in the world, this is the reflection on what you went through. A reaffirming of what's important to you. Family. Friends. Trying to be a better Person. Creativity.
And this is where I explain why Back On You is my favourite.
I've been officially Peri-Menopausal for almost a year now (as in, that was when I got my HRT prescription), and one of my main symptoms is heightened anxiety. I get very very anxious, very quickly, often for no reason at all; however global politics in its infinite wisdom has decided to lob in a number of things for me to genuinely get anxious about, with the bonus of not being able to do much about them. Which has REALLY HELPED! THANKS!!
Particularly over the last few months, Seasonal Affective Disorder hit me like it's never done before this winter. I would start to get really anxious, fearful and tearful pretty much as soon as the sun went down. I went through such a long period of feeling cut off from my ability to access joy, and to be able to look on the bright side.
So that transition from Golden Line to Back On You...on my first listen, as soon as the choir kicked in I started to cry. It took at least a week before I could hear those two songs together without crying. A month in, they still set me off sometimes. I cried on the voice note I'm transcribing right now. I'm a bit choked up typing this.
Back On You just being an ode to the fact that yes, horrible things still happen. But humans are also goofy, and sociable and love each other and help each other...that song happened to me exactly when I needed it, and that's why it's my favourite. [still choking up tbh]
So...yeah. I liked it. In fact I think he's played an absolute blinder. And it's fucking killing me not being able to watch the live vids of Egg because I am DETERMINED my first experience of Egg live will be when I'm there in June.
[NB - when I get to Golden Line/Back On You/Crux there's some brief discussion of my menopause and mental health so if you're not in a place for that please feel free to skip]
I see it as an album divided into quarters - appropriately, as it's to a certain extent about a quarter-life crisis (292929) - about how you go through, get over and recalibrate big life events, the stuff we all go through that causes you to sit down and reassess everything.
So the first quarter - Lonesome Is A State Of Mind, Basic Being Basic and Link - is when you're still on the exit velocity, riding on the enorphins and adrenaline of knowing that The Incident(s) are over and thinking 'well, now we're in the next phase, we're moving on'.
time it takes an edge
grinds it clean
turns a scar to a seam
the idea that this will always have had an impact but I'm now at a point where I can look back on it, and very purposefully closing that chapter with show that kid to the door.
Which makes it such a hysterical, brilliant transition to have Lonesome showing that kid to the door only for Basic Being Basic to be that kid turning around in the doorway and saying 'actually you know what REALLY pisses me off?'. It's the sound of someone insisting whatever I'm totally over it when it's so laughably obvious they're not (I'm not funny). You can also view the transition as Lonesome setting up the themes and style of The Crux only for BBB to be Decide elbowing its way back onto the mic all I HADN'T FINISHED. Either way, making BBB the first single, our first introduction to this album is an absolute interrobang of a move, pure ?!
Then Link is the celebratory DONE WITH ALL OF THAT! BRING ON REST OF LIFE! through the metaphor of graduation, coming of age, being young, having the world at your feet. Our generation's gonna do things differently! Which makes releasing it in the year of our lord Twenty Twenty Fucking Five ironic to the point of being overtly politicaL. Because here's a very deliberate homage to that genre of WHOO! I'M A TEENAGER!! IN AMERICA!!! rock, with it's very overt nods to Summer of 69 and Jailbreak by Thin Lizzy (when he namechecked Jailbreak in that triple-j interview in February I did a heeeee! and then an even harder heeeee! when I heard the sirens on Link). But, like, how much fun are American teenagers having right now? 'Look out world, here we c-wait, this is shit.'
[further to the sirens on Link I love how absolutely on the nose all the homages in this album are. He's on the record as worrying it might be seen as too corny or retro so elects to lampshade it by dropping in the Jailbreak sirens or flat out using Beatles and Queen and Oasis song titles as lyrics. Basic Being Basic could even be seen as pre-empting the accusation of returning to a traditional rock sound after the synths of Decide. Are The Beatles cheugy? Discuss.]
Then in the second quarter, we move from saying 'wow that was some shit i went through but now I'm over it' to Potion, Delete Ya and Egg, which
SPOILER ALERT:
he was not over it.
he was still, quite literally, going through it.
Potion I have more to say about in the context of Gap Tooth Smile when I get there, but again, what a transition to have this pure, delicate song about the mundanities of long term love (leave on the light) then smash cut to Delete Ya, wallowing in all the horrible mundanities of a breakup. Songs you can't listen to anymore. Collecting all that stuff you forgot you left at their house. This hurts so much I would rather never have met you.
And then there's fucking Egg.
I have nothing coherent to say about Egg, I'm just pointing at Egg, saying FUCKING EGG!!!! WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!
It's like. Like. It's my second favourite song on the album, the reason it's not my first favourite is my first favourite, which we haven't got to yet, is something that just justjustjust hit me, I...there's context and emotional reasons. We'll get to it.
But if you said to me what direction I want Djo 4 to go in, it's Egg all the fucking way. Like.
I mean, Djo 4...if he wants to release another 12 retro rock bangers, I'm seated. If he wants to do a 45 minute long tone poem about his socks performed on nose flute and spoons, I'm seated. But what I really want is an entire album of Egg. Just a whole album of weird goblin man going out of his head yelling about the human condition. Yeah. That-yeah. Come on.
Just so much going on in that song, and it's so just all over the place, the weird, weird guitar noises (or are they violins? need to re-listen), just. The harmony on crimson and gold?! The way he pronounces self-satisfied. Just...what a song. What an absolutely banger song.
And I can totally get why they were going back and forth and back and forth until the last minute as to whether they would include it, because from a commercial point of view it is apart from the whole rest of the album, and it is Not Commercial in any way, shape or form. But, the album would not be complete without it, it would be...you have to have Egg in that record. You have to have that absolute meltdown crisis y'know long dark teatime of the soul kind of record, song in the middle of that album. That crescendoes into that repeat, that repeat, that repeat of the world the world the world all round where it just...and his voice disappears into that repeat, and it's - which is pure transcendentalism, the idea of becoming at one with the world, with the universe.
And it has to- the way it crashes to an absolute halt as well, the idea that you have to do the navel-gazing but you can't spend the rest of your life doing the navel-gazing, which we will get to in the third quarter. It has to come to that crashing halt, it's just. Wow. As I say, for personal reasons it's only my second favourite on the album but you can make a very very strong case for it being the best thing he's ever done.
[more coherent notes resume now]
I love that Crux is the final track of the album but Egg is the crux of the album, the midpoint, the apex of all the soul-searching that abruptly stops as you realise you can't just disappear into the ether thinking about all of this. Life has to go on.
And then the third quarter - Fly, Charlie's Garden, Gap Tooth Smile - you're into the rest and recovery after you've had that period of self examination, where you need to refresh, renew, replenish (to call back to Delete Ya). Fly, where you're still having the regrets but this chapter is through, we're moving on but we're still very tender and being gentle with ourselves.
Then Charlie's Garden is about the aspects of rest and self care that are fun! Hanging out with your friends! Playing with the dog! Being in a garden! Not wanting to work! FUN!!!! Can we just do this bit forever? Not get back to the day to day grind?
And Gap Tooth Smile - inspired by an idealised partner rather than a specific person - is about feeling ready to take your battered, patched-up heart and put it out there again, having the courage to do that. This is why Gap Tooth Smile and Potion are very much in dialogue, for me. They appear roughly at the same place on each side, one about that desperate, desperate yearning for your one true love, the other about letting go and trusting that when and if it happens, you'll be ready. You'll know it when you see it.
Also it took me three days of listens to notice that the transition of this section is like the passing of the seasons. Fly starts off Midwinter, in the snow, longing for Spring, then Charlie's Garden is Spring, and Gap Tooth Smile is pure Summer. Intentional? Who knows? Still glorious.
[Sidenote regarding the snow and running references in Fly, as a certified Gator Tillman enjoyer it is an absolute delight to me that wanting to be anywhere other than inside Gator's head contributed in some small way to making this album what it is. [sidenote to sidenote: will I ever be over him including Sam Spruell in his photos of people The Crux is about? No I will not] I know he says there's no bleedthrough of his two jobs, but...Bro, you were playing Gator and then on your downtime wrote a load of songs about how nice it is to have supportive parents and grow up surrounded by female influences and have lots of friends. I mean.]
Finally, the last quarter of Golden Line, Back On You and The Crux - you're back out in the world, this is the reflection on what you went through. A reaffirming of what's important to you. Family. Friends. Trying to be a better Person. Creativity.
And this is where I explain why Back On You is my favourite.
I've been officially Peri-Menopausal for almost a year now (as in, that was when I got my HRT prescription), and one of my main symptoms is heightened anxiety. I get very very anxious, very quickly, often for no reason at all; however global politics in its infinite wisdom has decided to lob in a number of things for me to genuinely get anxious about, with the bonus of not being able to do much about them. Which has REALLY HELPED! THANKS!!
Particularly over the last few months, Seasonal Affective Disorder hit me like it's never done before this winter. I would start to get really anxious, fearful and tearful pretty much as soon as the sun went down. I went through such a long period of feeling cut off from my ability to access joy, and to be able to look on the bright side.
So that transition from Golden Line to Back On You...on my first listen, as soon as the choir kicked in I started to cry. It took at least a week before I could hear those two songs together without crying. A month in, they still set me off sometimes. I cried on the voice note I'm transcribing right now. I'm a bit choked up typing this.
Back On You just being an ode to the fact that yes, horrible things still happen. But humans are also goofy, and sociable and love each other and help each other...that song happened to me exactly when I needed it, and that's why it's my favourite. [still choking up tbh]
So...yeah. I liked it. In fact I think he's played an absolute blinder. And it's fucking killing me not being able to watch the live vids of Egg because I am DETERMINED my first experience of Egg live will be when I'm there in June.
