Ben Folds Five : Mess

Back in 2000, I had been married for a few years, had four kids, was working for a stupid-ass contractor at an insurance company, and I just couldn't get it. The stress was high, my job sucked, my marriage was rocky and I was going through a bit of an early mid-life crisis. Worse, from the outside, it looked like everything was going right. It really wasn't that bad. Nobody died, no floods, fires or earthquakes. But it still felt crappy, and that brought extra confusion, guilt and stress. The stress of being stressed and depressed when you really have so much to be happy about.

I'm much better now. I understand my goals, I know who I am and know my direction. My marriage is fantastic, my kids are great, and I'm at a place where I'm truly comfortable with myself. You really can't ask for much more.

But back then, I felt like a bit of a mess.

There aren't many artists who really grab my heart strings. A lot of people expound the lyrical virtues of Springsteen and Dylan, but for me, the guy who grasps the middle-class white boy angst I was growing old with, the guy who ever came the closest to 'speaking to me' through music, was Ben Folds. Some how, he managed to grasp nail the turmoil I was going through at the time. There are a handful of songs of his, both with the "Five" and solo, that just open my heart and let the tears of joy and pain flow out.

I know that's pretty emo or whatever, but that's how it is.  What can you do?

"Mess" is a fantastic song, ostensibly about taking stock and accepting the mistakes you've made. But it's really about the hopelessness and futility of wallowing in your 'mess'. A mess is a point of view, a state of mind. Where you see a mess, I might see an opportunity, something that needs a little work.  But in the song the protagonist is not fixing the mess he's created.  He's not even considering that there might be something to fix.  He's decided somewhere along the way that it's a lost cause, and he's just learned to live with it.  Or so he pretends.  And that's just terrible.

I think the reason this song hit me so hard was that I felt like my mess was hopeless as well, that it was the inevitable result of the decisions I'd made and things that were out of my control.  I felt trapped in the mess I had made, and I used to turn it up and cry and cry on the way home from work.
 
Like I said, emo.  I'm much better now and while it doesn't strike me so close to home any longer, it's still a great song.

The song itself has a quiet urgency, mimicking the inescapable progress of time and fate that the singer is caught up in.  And Ben's calmly plaintive vocals carry just the right amount of despair and resignation, without being sappy or overbearing. You can hear the weariness in his voice especially clearly when it breaks while singing the lone word "again".

I've always thought "Mess" would be a great bluegrass song. They sing that sweet close harmony in the chorus and all that busy piano work could easily be picked up by banjo. And that "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town" shuffle beat could drop into a country two-step. It'd be great. Seriously.  Somebody do that.

You can find "Mess" on Ben Folds Five's 1999 release, The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner. There's a funny story about Reinhold Messner, but I'll let you read it on Wikipedia rather than retelling it here. The album is great, probably the best of the bunch from those guys, and I love them all.

[You can listen to Ben Folds Five's "Mess" by navigating to the post "Song059" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

---