Sparks and Grief (a deep dive)
Hey everyone it is Jack/Noodle here again, I am back with a new blog post. Before we get too ahead of ourselves, I think I owe everyone an explanation and an apology for appearing then disappearing again. The reason I’ve been gone again is a tragic one, my sidekick and best friend and furry creature, Esme, passed away and I’ve been trying to balance my work and personal state and find who I am again. Esme was a huge fan of sparks and she and I bonded with the music of this amazing band, even in her last moments on this mortal planet were spent bonding and watching sparks videos. I am dedicating my sparks tour adventure in June in Glasgow to her, as she always looked so proud and grateful I was growing and learning how to embrace my anxiety and autism. One day, I’ll be making a post about how my anxiety overtook me as a teen and how sparks has been helpful in making me build a race car to speed past that anxiety. Esme also was a huge worker for my blog, she didn’t type the posts (I do that) but she helped me have moments to sit and think about the ideas I want to write about. Todays post is all around Sparks and the comfort they bring during grief, from a neurodivergent persons perspective. So before we begin and take ourselves on a walk, please get a drink or snack. My drink today is a cherry cola and a Lindt chocolate bar as a snack, feel free to tell me what you’re having or even offer up snack or drink suggestions but please remember I am a British person and have no spice tolerance. Anyways without much delay let’s get wandering.
So what is grief? Grief is a journey one goes through after a loss and no journey for any person is the same, and it can take varying lengths for everyone. The feelings are: shock, denial, bargaining, depression, anger, guilt and acceptance. But these feelings aren’t presented linear, such as you could start feeling guilty someone or something died, or finish still in denial or shocked they went. Grief for me is I lost my mum nearly 3 years ago and Esme about a month ago. Both grief journeys for me are very different paths and roads and both I still feel intense feelings for.
One thing I remember about my mum and it’s always going to be a part of me is the fact that she always focused on the one good thing in a day, it started for me when I was struggling as a teenager and now I do it even more as a way to feel a connection to my mum. One thing I’ll always remember about Esme is how she always sat next to me and slept so calmly when I would work, she also always took part in everytime I played on the Wii with my friends. You might ask, ‘what is your favourite memory about them?’ For my mum I can remember when I was a kid we used to have “girly days” where we’d go to the nearby mall and she'd treat both of us, I remember one day we almost walked down an up escalator and we both giggled it off, another story I will give is she came with me to my first ever concert, between the support slot and main act the main act played a playlist of amazing music and I was singing along and dancing and my mum giggled at me and joined in a few times and I still hold footage of part of that and whenever I have bad days I watch it and remember who I was and who I am now. My favourite memory of Esme was when she had an elder dog in her life called Toffee who was a whippet; when I was a teen, me and my sister once walked in to the house and went “hello Esme” and she got pinned by the small whippet and we went “oh hello Toffee too”.
When we look at the shallow waters for Sparks, we learn their dad Meyer Mael died when the Mael's were 8 and 11. Meyer was an artist for a newspaper in LA but also for his own practice. When you look at his works, especially his own practice, which was paintings you get a sense of motion and flow as he worked so well in capturing a moment and feeling. As a creative, an illustrator no less, I often get comments from outsiders that my work reminds them of the expressionist movement, to me Meyer's work reminds me of the expressionist movements. I feel like this connection to the expressionist movement is carried through to the Mael's, especially in their first two albums as the storytelling in the songs isn't fully formed or established yet but the flow and moments they capture feel very expressionist. The Mael's have gone on record to say that the concept of death is so abstract, which is very relatable; death is like an expressionist artwork, it can be clear what happened or what is happening. When we swim a bit deeper we can learn how Meyer was a well appreciated man and was dedicated to his family. In the Sparks documentary, we learn how Meyer took the boys to the cinema, introduced them to rock and roll, got them dressed up in costumes. Grief must have hit them intensely as he welcomed them to so much media and helped them grow into the world, I cannot speak for them but we can imagine they must feel a sense of pain they’ve grown older than their own father. I haven't reached any age older than my mum yet, but that day is a long road away from me which I’m dreading as she will miss me living instead of regretting.
Climbing a metaphorical mountain, Sparks can also comfort one from grief. After my mum passed on I sunk myself into the ground below, deeply into Sparks from illustrating them in my free time, to writing this very blog. Sparks have so many songs which can be a blanket for those who are suffering through grief.
One song example is, Edith Piaf (said it better than me) from the album Hippopotamus; the lyric in this song which feels like a blanket for grief is “Live fast, die young…too late for that” this lyric could reference how the narrator wants to give some advice to listener and they want them to do something they never did. This lyric could also connect to grief and how people want to live for the moment and the now and today, knowing they might die the next day, but the narrator feels it’s too late to start living as they might be dying or old. Another lyric from this song is “I'm sorry, time's up… Sorry, nothing will change”, this links to grief as death can strike suddenly for a lot of people and we can’t change that, we have to just accept that, it could also be said from the perspective of a medical professional who is wanting to tell a family that their loved one has gone and nothing will change that. The last lyric in this song I’ll discuss is “My hunch was right” this lyric could connect to grief as sometimes people can predict or get a vibe that someone or something is going to die, they get a hunch. I feel like the narrator could connect this lyric to loosing someone as they could predict the loss of someone and as mentioned in an early analysis “sorry nothing will change” connects these lyrics to the inability to prevent certain events from occurring.
The second example is, All That from the album A Steady Drip Drip, released 2020 which feels very connected to death as a lot of people lost family members due to covid complications. The first lyric we'll look into is “All the things you said to me…And all the times you prayed for me…And all the holy places we would go”, this could link to a narrator grieving due to the connections to holy places and religion. A lot of grieving people may turn to religion in a hard time and some people who believe in supporting a grieving friend or loved one or family member may also turn to the religious world. The narrator also may be thinking about all the memories of the one they’re grieving as they think about all the conversations they had recently, for me one of my last conversations to my mum was wishing her good night and going to bed and everytime I bring that up people tell me how perfect it was but I get annoyed that I didn’t say more. Another lyric is “We've lost, we've won” which could link to the fact that grief can make you lose or gain something, you may lose the person or animal you love but you gain the ability to connect with more people and make the dead person or creatures voice heard, such as with me I’ve been trying to ask for a deaf person support group in my towns new library as I know from second hand accounts (my mum was deaf) that being deaf is an isolating experience and I will always hear and speak up for the deaf community when I can, as someone who goes non verbal when overwhelmed I taught myself the BSL (British sign Language) alphabet and write what I want to say and can communicate basic phrases and situations. Another lyric is “And all the fears that you would soon be gone” this could reference that the narrators loved one was once dying or was in a serious condition and they feared the worst situation. This can connect to grief as you fear once one person or creature close to you has passed on that everyone around you will disappear from your life either same way or different. I fear I’ll lose my dad sometimes, even though we don’t get on or bond like regular kid and parent, I just know I couldn't manage existing in a house on my own and would need his help a lot more than I let on. When I lost Esme, she was deemed healthy and alive by her vet as she had just had surgery and I’d spent every night sleeping with her post surgery to make sure she had toilet support and also someone around her to comfort her, I was afraid the day she went into surgery she was gone as I had heard nothing all day about her condition until I was out of my house for work. The last lyric I want to talk about is “We'd waste a lot of time, this, that postponed” this lyric could reference how the narrator has a lot of memories and stories about their loved one and how they can talk a lot about them, which is honestly the realest thing about grief. I could talk a lot about how my mum taught me how to protect myself against weird men or how she helped me survive and stay alive during my teen years where I was bullied so intensely it triggered a severe flare up in a skin condition or even the mum who when I was making art projects happen in lockdown during college would take me to the craft store and get me amazing snacks. We may have never really seen eye to eye as we were too similar but she taught me to always look out for my friends and to keep thinking positively and tut everytime dad buys another shirt or pair of shoes for himself. I could also talk a lot about Esme from the time when she was a baby and she murdered her own teddy (I feel partially to blame) to her giggling when I was cooking my tea in the kitchen and dancing to music or even the times when we’d be out on holiday with everyone and we’d catch glimpses of each other such as the time when we went to the Outer Heberdies with our dad and Esme went sea swimming and kept saying that the sea water was gross tasting but kept going back for more.
The last example is, My Baby's Taking me Home; this is from the album Lil Beethoven which interestingly was dropped officially 2 days after I was born so I should’ve been out album celebrating at 2 days old but instead I was confined to a hospital being monitored as I was so small. I wanted this song played at my mums funeral, not because she was a sparks fan (she wasn’t as far as I’m aware) but because of the emotions I feel when I play this song and the repetitive nature of the lyrics “Home, my baby’s taking me home” which the longer you play it and sit with it the more powerful and feeling I feel. It starts with a happy face and expression of “they’re going home, that’s nice” as home can mean so many different feelings and emotions and places to all kinds of people, home for me is either my bedroom with my massive CD collection or Scotland. As the song progresses, I start feeling a pang of pain and sadness as I begin to remember the person and reality sinks in and reminds me that the person is gone and dead. I always hear my brain telling me “it’s okay to cry, it’s okay to feel shit, It’s okay to be mad” when I hear this song as I have tiny watery eyes thinking about my mum and how mad I am that she fucked off before I graduated, she saw me start to get settled into university then went “au revior Germany” (reference to a line I wrote in a story at 12). I get mad at how she never saw me adult. She never saw me conquer a doctor on my own, a dentist on my own and eye test on my own (almost, my best friend was outside the door helping me after pick the best glasses and incase I had a panic attack). The lyric “As we walk through the morning rain… And the skies are clearing” feels like a description for grief, you walk through the rain and it may feel like a storm at first and you may be unsure if you’ll ever feel dry after again but soon that feeling fades and the sun starts to appear as you move on accept it. Another lyric is “But we can hear what others can't hear…We can hear the sound of a chorus singing” This lyric could talk to you about how sometimes people feel they are deeply connected to the religious world and that heaven and hell exist, from my stance they don’t but I always think every nice sunset or sunrise is the people I’ve lost protecting and watching me. I used to stare at sunsets a lot before my mum died and think it was the gateway into that universe where everything goes much smoother and efficient because you went through life the best you could in the circumstances you had. I also feel that lyric could reference how the chorus is almost a comfort as once you open up about your grieving experience, you may connect with others or have family who understand and will be waiting for you. I have my sister when I feel awful as in I’ll text her what I’m doing and she does the same as we’re miles apart but I don’t admit to her I do it as I don’t want to lose her or be a terrible brother who knew nothing about their younger sister.
And this is all I have time for today, I may be doing more posts around grief in the future as I would love to spend more time and passion in discussing my take on the subject. Unfortunately there is not enough work or research or views on grief and neurodivergent people, just the research and views of parents who’ve had kids diagnosed as neurodivergent and their grief around their kid not being normal. Personally, I feel like that side of the coin should never be a thing; you shouldn’t be crying or mad or denying that your kid is different you should be accepting and open to it. My dad denies that I’m autistic a lot but he was barely around for the “key stage” of my life due to work and my mum saw a lot of the autistic embracements I did as a kid slowly disappearing as I began to mask, so I feel like no parent
should be grieving the kid who is freshly diagnosed you should be celebrating that. Grieve the dead person not the living.
Once again I’ve been Jack/Noodle, you’ve been a very patient reader and I’ll catch you next time.
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