Dissect - S10E5 - NEW MAGIC WAND by Tyler, The Creator

Episode Date: November 15, 2022

Our season-long analysis of Tyler, The Creator's IGOR continues with "NEW MAGIC WAND" - a song Tyler described as his favorite song he's ever made. We unpack everything from its unlikely sample source to the historical associations of its main musical interval. Shop Season 10 merchandise here. Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. Host, EP, Writer: Cole Cuchna Writer: Camden Ostrander Audio Editor: Kevin Pooler Theme Music: Birocratic Recreations: Andrew Atwood Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Spotify, this is Dysect, long-form musical analysis broken into short, digestible episodes. This is episode five of our season-long examination of Tyler the creator's Igor. I'm your host, Cole Kushner. Last time I Dysect, we examined Igor's fifth track running out of time, a beautiful, emotional ballad in which Tyler began to realize that his opportunity to win its crush over may be slipping away. Up against the clock, Tyler became more direct about the obstacles he felt were standing in their way. his crush's reservations about accepting their sexuality and the crush's girlfriend. Running Out of Time then ended on a gorgeous instrumental outro,

which is abruptly cut off by Igor's next track, the subject of our episode today, New Magic Wand. Sometimes you've got to close the door to open a window. New Magic One was written and produced by Tyler Okoma and features background vocals by Santagold and Jesse Wilson. The sequence from Running Out of Time into New Magic One continues the album's focus on song-to-song transitions. Recall that the last chord of Igor's theme bridged into the first chord of Earthquake. The 3-1 countdown at the end of Earthquake blended seamlessly into the 4-count at the top of I-Think, and the final chord of I think set up the first chord of exactly what you run from.

Now, rather than a chord of transition, the link from running out of time into new magic wand is thematic, as the outro of running out of time is abruptly cut short, as if time has indeed run out. There's also a bit of clever word-plan-planned Gerard Carmichael's brief introduction. Sometimes you've got to close the door to open a window, as some, times continues the thematic emphasis on time. The phrase seems to play off the more common idiom when one door closes another opens, which is generally used to cultivate an optimistic outlook on a failure or something ending, as it allows for other opportunities to present themselves. Gerard and Tyler's rephrasing of this idea within the context of Igor's narrative opens it up

to different possibilities. For instance, opening a window allows fresh air into a house, it allows you to breathe, to live more openly and free. Thus we suspect that part of the meaning here is that Tyler's crush must close the door in his girlfriend and let go of the idea of only having relationships with women to enjoy the freedom of living in his truth. Also, while the phrase, when one door closes another opens emphasizes fate or often God's will in our circumstances, saying you got to close the door, emphasizes our ability to manipulate our circumstances by our own decisions and free will. It's a call to action, to take control.

While we might assume again Tyler's trying to convince his crush to take action, knowing the subject matter of New Magic Wand, we understand that. that Tyler actually means he's going to take action. He's going to close the door himself by eliminating the girl, the obstacle as he sees it. After this brief quote from Drod, New Magic Wand erupts into a crude, maniacal beat that Tyler said with an attempt to portray,

well, let me just play the clip. I wanted to make something that was like fucking really just hard dick, just thraw. So that's when New Magic Wand came. After hearing Tyler's description of the track, it's hard not to observe how the synth kind of throbs and pulsates aggressively. The main riff is just two notes, oscillating back and forth between an E and F. This interval, or the distance between these two notes, is what's known as a minor second,

which is the most dissonant interval we have in music, commonly used in horror films like the famous Jaws score or Hitchcock Psycho. Thus, it's fitting that Tyler uses this infamous interval in a song that centers around his fantasy of killing the girlfriend. The instrument playing the riff is once again a distorted bass synth, an instrument we've heard on every single track so far. Behind the riff we hear a driving drumbeat sampled from an obscure record from 1981 by Silhouette 61, the alias of German musician Tom Doku-Pel. Tyler splices a four-bar chunk from this track and pitches it up 148 cents to create the loop we hear on New Magic Wand. During the track's intro we hear Tyler led out a demented laugh, almost like a wicked witch, followed by a scream. Between this and the music,

it's clear the mood as abruptly shifted from the mournful ballad of running out of time, reflecting Tyler's sinister intent expressed in the song's first verse. During this first verse, a few new production elements enter, including a Rhodes keyboard that mimics and plays in sync with Tyler's vocal melody. There's also a second Rhodes keyboard panned to the right speaker mimicking the distorted bass riff. These Rhodes parts are another one of those small details that exemplifies so much of Tyler's musicality and creative vision. As we realize the road's keyboard and distorted bass are the same two instruments we heard prominently featured on the previous track Running Out of Time.

As we've noticed throughout Igor so far, it's choices like these that make a ballad like Running Out of Time and an aggressive track like New Magic Wand sound unified, part of the same musical family despite their vast differences in tempo, mood, tone, and theme. Another detail you might not have noticed is that Tyler's demented laugh from the intro is sampled and replayed between each phrase of the verse, slightly panned right. Here's the laugh from the intro. And now try to pick it out between the phrases of the verse. It's a detail that adds to the percussive chaos and frenzy of the track. Interestingly, Tyler himself stays pretty tame in his performance of the verse, which somehow makes it even more creepy, as if he's at home amidst so much dark energy. He begins by saying,

I saw a picture, you look joyous. My eyes are green, I eat my veggies. Tyler here describes what feels like social media creeping, scrutinizing every detail of his crushes or the girlfriend's page for evidence, voyeuristically peering into their lives and activities. Perhaps this is what he meant by needing to close the door to open a window, as he opens up a new internet window to creep their social media page. The crush's external joy while together with the girl leaves Tyler's eyes green with envy. Given Tyler's transformation into a monster-like character on this track, it's worth noting that the origin of green eyes symbolizing jealousy is attributed to Shakespeare's Othello, where jealousy is described as, quote, a green-eyed monster which doth mock. While it feels unlikely Tyler was

citing Othello intentionally, there are parallels between it and Igor, as Othello is about a general who appoints a new chief lieutenant named Cassio, much to the dismay of the character Iago. Enraged with envy and feeling inferior, Iago plots against Othello and Cassio by falsely implicating that Cassio and Othello's wife are having a love affair. Likewise, Tyler's feelings of jealousy and inferiority have him plotting the demise of his crush's girlfriend. Interestingly, Tyler follows my eyes are green with, I eat my veggies, as if to preemptively justify or claim his current mindset as healthy and natural, organic. The line of The line is actually a reference to one of Tyler's favorite artist Erica Badoo,

and her song Green Eyes from her acclaimed Neo Soul album Mama's Gun. It's here that Badoo attempts to pass off her eyes as green, not from jealousy for her ex's new girl, but rather green from eating her vegetables. The lyric here is, my eyes are green because I eat a lot of vegetables. It don't have nothing to do with your new friend, a perfect match to Tyler's current scenario. But the similarities don't end with this line. Rather, the entire song eerily parallels many of Igor's motifs and themes. There's a line, but I don't love you anymore, a direct match to Igor's penultimate track, I don't love you anymore. There's Badoo's line, I hope it's not too late,

I can't leave, it's too late, which recalls the idea of running out of time and Igor's don't leave lyrical motif. There's Baudu's line, want to run because you say that you are afraid, which recalls the running motif and the crushes fear. Finally, there's green eyes's last line, never knew how to breathe love. You can't be what I need you to, and I don't know why I fuck with you, which reflects Tyler's frustration with his crush's inability to live in his truth, and Igor's motif of breathing. By giving us a direct reference to Green Eyes, Tyler leaves a breadcrumb for those of us curious enough to dig deeper, and were rewarded with an abundance of lyrics that contextualize and add emotional depth to New Magic Wand. Indeed, while Tyler's outward expression

might be aggressive and sinister in this moment, Green Eyes helps us to better understand the heartbreak and pain that gives birth to his rage. There's even a chance that the album art for Badu's Mama's Gun helped inspire Igor's art. If you look at the two covers side by side, you'll see that Tyler's blank stare and semi-open mouth mirror exactly Badoo's expression in the crop photo on Mama's Gun's cover. With this in mind, it becomes a particularly rewarding experience to listen to Mama's Gun and focus on the stories of love triangles and a lover's scorn, reflective as it is of Igor's themes and narrative. And what better song for Tyler to make this formal connection to Mama's Gun as New Magic One is Igor's Gun. Perhaps these connections

would feel like a reach if it weren't clear that Tyler is deeply inspired by Badoo and specifically the album Mama's Gun, as he called the album at one point his musical DNA. In 2020, Tyler tweeted, quote, Mama's Gun and Who is Jill Scott, Volume 1, turned 20 this year. I was nine, soaking and all in, core of my musical DNA. Thank you to those two gods. Love, love, love, unquote. After the Baadu reference, Tyler continues his photo analogy, saying, I need to get her out the picture. She's really fucking up my frame. She's not developed like we are. This is a near identical match to the line I need her out the picture we heard on the previous song Running Out of Time. Only now Tyler develops the metaphor further. A frame obviously evokes a picture frame, but the act of framing

something generally denotes value. We frame things that we feel are special or beautiful and deserve presentation and preservation. In this way, Tyler's upholding his love as something to be on display, something he's proud of, something he wants seen by the world. This contrasts with the crush's desire to keep their love a secret, a major theme explored in the previous track. Beyond the picture metaphor, we can think about a frame in a structural sense, the central support system without which buildings or cars collapse. This recalls the sentiments of earthquake,

speaking to the ways this love has the power to completely demolish Tyler's frame, his underlying emotional support system. Finally, we can think about this as fucking with Tyler's frame of mind. recalling the sentiments of running out of time, specifically the lyric, You spin my head around, I've been looking for it. Tyler puts a cap on the photo analogy saying, She's not developed like we are. The surface play is a developing photo,

with underdeveloped film resulting in a flat lifeless print, which Tyler compares to his crush and the girl's relationship, while Tyler and the guys is much deeper. As New Magic Wand continues, we reach the song's hypnotic refrain, where we'll hear Tyler create tension by introducing a subtle, droning synth playing a single sustained note. Single note drones are a staple of horror and suspense films as the sustained unresolved tension makes us uncomfortable and craving resolution. As you listen, try to identify this droning synth and notice how it adds a certain kind of musical anxiety to the moment.

Like magic, Mike Magic, Black Magic, God. Tyler and Company performed the tracks refrain, like Magic Gone, New Magic Wand. Coming off the heels of the verses extended photo analogy, we're primed to suspect that this magic wand with the ability to make things disappear refers to the magic wand Photoshop tool, which quite literally has the power to select and remove objects from a picture. The play here is using this wand to make the girl disappear, and thus all of Tyler's problems would be solved, like magic. We know Tyler is intimately familiar with the Photoshop tool, as many of the early odd future graphic design work done by Tyler himself is characterized in part by his crude use of the magic wand

tool. Even the cover of Igor is Tyler's head crudely photoshopped out of a picture and placed in the pink, a function of the magic wand. Despite the seemingly logical connection between the Photoshop tool and the photo-based first verse, Tyler himself took to Twitter to confirm that the new magic wand was based on a gun. This makes the means of removal much more violent, exemplifying just how desperate and twisted Tyler's mind has become struggling for power in this relationship. Be it a gun or a Photoshop tool, the end goal remains the same. He wants the girl gone by any means necessary. This over-obsessive and now violent quality Tyler's expressing is something he talked about when performing New Magic One for the first time. My friends know this. I'm very, I wouldn't say

obsessive personality, but like, if I find an outfit I like, I'll wear it for a month straight. And then you'll never see it again. I'll listen to a song for five days in a row. I'll go to the same food spot for a month. It's crazy. I guess that's is that obsessive personality? No, that's just, Nick, I know what the fuck I like. So,

I wrote this song because I couldn't fully have what I wanted at all times. My brother said I'm on a spectrum. Don't call me selfish, I hate sharing. This 60-40 working.

I want a hundred. The verse 2, the distorted bass is removed from the mix and the part is taken over by a Rhodes keyboard, lowering the overall dynamics of the section. This allows Tyler to add a number of new details throughout the verse, including these high-pitched synth notes, this rapidly panning low-glitching sound, and my favorite detail, the crude sporadic drum fills. These small, frantic details add an an almost schizophrenic tension to the track, helping to musically reflect Tyler's increasingly troubled and obsessive mind. He begins the verse, My Buddy said, I'm on the spectrum, a phrase that typically refers to the autism spectrum. Within the context of this song and verse, it seems like the buddy is

comparing Tyler's obsessive fixation on his crush to someone with autism, as hyper-focusing on a specific interest is a recognized feature of autism. This theme continues into the next lines, don't call me selfish, I hate sharing. The 60-40 isn't working. 60-40 here seems to reference the popular investment portfolio of 60% stocks and 40% bonds. This split traditionally produces a low-risk investment, which Tyler is comparing to his crush's strategy of dividing his time and attention between him and the girl. In other words, he's hedging, perhaps with the girl receiving the more favorable time allowance. This investment analogy continues what we heard on both boyfriend and running out of time.

where Tyler consistently claimed time to be his most important asset, and grew tired of wasting it on this relationship seemingly going nowhere. The use of the percents here also sheds light on the previous spectrum line, in that Tyler isn't fully in the relationship, merely on the spectrum, and what Tyler wants is to feel secure on one end of the spectrum, afraid of the vague, nebulous middle. Thus Tyler demands 100 of his time, his full attention, the entire portfolio. The verse then ends crudely with Tyler singing, Your Mind. It's clear that Tyler's obsession is turning possessive, and dangerously so.

He's issuing ultimatums that feel more like threats, and we fear what will happen if he doesn't get his way. Tyler drones out a secondary refrain of, Please don't leave me now. It's the second time on the album we've heard this phrase, the first being Igor's second track earthquake, where Tyler repeatedly agonized, don't leave, it's my fault. Where Earthquake's plea felt rooted in vulnerability and fearing abandonment,

the phrase here feels more like someone possessed. The obsessive repetitions are haunting, a psychotic trance as he fixates on his possession. This contrast between the two uses of Don't Leave is a great example of motivic development, where multiple occurrences of a single phrase can instantly demonstrate a character's progression, or in this case, regression. Between Earthquake and New Magic One, we get two emotional manifestations of Tyler's underlying fear of abandonment, one heartbroken desperation, one maniacal desperation. As the section continues, Tyler interjects the first refrain like magic gone.

We also hear Tyler sing, I can make her leave, speaking to the power of his new magic wand. Adding to the song's ominous evolving tension, Don't Leave is beginning to sound more and more like a threat, as Tyler holds the magic wand to the head of his beloved's girlfriend. It's a beautifully haunting mosaic of complementary melodies. And as the track continues, the Growing anxiety created by the hypnotic repetitions of these sinister phrases finally erupts into a part that Tyler called his favorite musical moment he's ever made in his career. We'll dissect that section, along with the rest of New Magic Wand, right after the break. Welcome back to Dissect.

Before the break, we heard a vocal montage of overlapping refrains slowly building tension. Please don't leave me and like magic gone. This tension ultimately releases as the track continues into a section Tyler described this way, quote, 125 on New Magic One, speaker at its highest, is my favorite moment I've ever made, purely based on feeling. Haven't been able to articulate why. I've also came to the conclusion that this is my favorite song I've made. It's so Tyler.

Everything I've attempted in one, executed perfectly. Tyler's laid-back delivery on the song finally erupts into an aggressive onslaught that feels more emblematic of the pent-up emotions he's been conveying up until this point. His distorted screaming begins, I want to be found, passenger in your car. First, we notice the continued development of the car or travel motif, which we've found at least once in every song so far.

Notably, a passenger seat holds just one person, fitting into Tyler's demand of his crush choosing him and only him. Tyler's dream car is a two-seater. There's no room for another. Tyler wanting to be found like this also means he wants to be discovered, to be publicly with this guy, instead of hidden in the shadows. Given the song's dark undertones, the specific phrasing, I want to be found passenger in your car,

feels intentionally discomforting, evoking common post-mortem phrases like, Tyler was found dead in the passenger seat of his boyfriend's car. The car symbolism continues into the next line. You want to give me mixed signals, don't park. Mix signals could reference traffic signals or turn signals. Either way, Tyler isn't receiving clear communication about his crushes and tensions, which we know has been an ongoing issue. Tyler then finally articulates the morbid power of his new tool, saying,

She's going to be dead, I just got a magic wand, we can finally be together. Depending on who you talk to, a gun is symbolic of death or self-protection, and both symbols work simultaneously here, as Tyler's twisted murder fantasy is the product of him desperately attempting to protect his own feelings and avoid emotional destruction. The problematic short-sightedness of his plan is obvious, and of course, we know Tyler knows this. He's not really planning to kill this woman.

Rather, he's expressing honestly the dark territories that the mind wanders to when faced with insurmountable conflicts of the heart. The fantasy of We Can Finally Be Together sets into motion a tonal change in the song. The driving two-note baseline is removed for the first time, and the familiar Rhodes keyboard plays a new chord progression that contrasts with everything we've heard to this point, once again displaying Tyler's commitment to juxtaposing the beautiful and the ugly. Tyler's love, you're not my first who gives a fuck, your other one, you evaporate, you celebrate, you under oath, I pick a side, and if you don't, I pick you both. Tyler returns to familiar territory, introducing a core progression full of rich harmonies

with unpredictable, non-traditional tonal changes. But similar to running out of time, the beautiful cores are accompanied with that ugly distorted bass. During the section Tyler returns to his pitched up voice beginning, You Roll the Dice, Hit a 7, Sure You're Right, Beginners' Luck, Not My First, Who Gives a Fuck? Recall that in our analysis of the song Boyfriend, Dice Rolling was a consistent metaphor used to convey his crush's indecisiveness, leaving things to chance. His crush having beginner's luck in hitting a 7, an ideal dice roll, might refer to Tyler himself, the idea being that Tyler is his ideal match and that he found him on his first try, which might insinuate Tyler as his first male partner.

Tyler contrasts this with, You Not My First, Who Gives a Fuck? While he might have had other male lovers before, Tyler wants to blow past the anxiety or regret felt when thinking of past partners, focusing on only what's in front of them at this moment. Then Tyler again brings up the woman, saying, Your other one, evaporate, we celebrate. This is the poof-gone power of the magic wand.

Like a magician making his female assistant disappear, Tyler delusionally imagines the applause or celebration that will occur once his trick is performed and the woman is out of the picture. He then issues a definitive ultimatum, you're under oath, now pick aside, and if you don't, I'll pick you both. It's not a joke. It's a legal court scenario, with his crush on trial and Tyler demanding honest testimony under oath. When performing the song live, during the line, if you don't, I'll pick you both, Tyler would sometimes pantomime effect. finger gun in two directions, as if aiming at two people. The implication being that if his crush doesn't choose a side, he'll murder both of them. This leads to the line, Murder She Wrote, a reference to the TV show where a widowed mystery writer was involved in solving actual murders. But the play here is the she in the title, as Tyler attempts to shift the blame to the woman,

deeming her responsible for this nightmare scenario. This line also hints at one other possible permutation of the new magic wand symbol, a pen, the tool of artistic creation, and writing, capable of building and destroying worlds in the minds of audiences. This magic wand could write a love story or pen a tragedy. Adding to the sinister undertones of this section are the backing vocal singing run repeatedly. Recall that running was first established as a motif early on the album. It's the very first thing we hear Tyler say on Igor. On the previous track, Running was used to convey time running out on Tyler's attempts to make his crush love him, to make him vote Igor in his run for the crush his heart. Here on New Magic Wand, the election theme fits, as Tyler is forcing his

crush to finally cast his vote. But the illusions to murder make us think that run in this case might mean run for your life, as Tyler threatens both of them with his magic wand. The temporary tonal warmth of the bridge is suddenly interrupted by what sounds like an alarm or ambulance siren, which is followed by a low-pitched grunt, as if Tyler's darker alter ego Igor has finally awoken. Some of the schizophrenic effects from the second verse also returned, adding to the escalating off-kilter tension. Then New Magic Wan finally erupts into its most relentless, dynamically intense section. While New Magic Wan had already reached higher highs than many songs, Tyler is able to turn it to 11 here through a few subtle changes and additional instruments and textures.

First, there's a slight rhythmic change to the main distorted bass riff to keep it more driving and punchy. There's also a heavy sub-base added, providing a low-end punch. Introduce midway through this section are these brassy, slightly shrill, synth chords. And if you listen really closely, you can also hear Tyler breathing rhythmically with the track, something he would isolate and use as an introduction when performing the song live. The heavy breathing foreshadows the vigorous energy of the upcoming track What's Good, while also emphasizing Igor's breathing motif. Tyler is working himself up to a more powerful expression in life. This is Tyler at full-tilt effort. The new dynamic heights of the track

are matched by Tyler's forceful vocals piercing through distortion, beginning to with the line, take one look in the mirror, implications so clear. Seeing how so much of this song has been encased in the magic wand and sorcery metaphor, we're primed here to think of the magic mirror from Snow White. The wicked queen looks into the magic mirror reciting mirror mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? While the mirror typically answered that the queen was the fairest, it's when the mirror named Snow White that the jealous queen concox a plan to kill her. It's a fitting reference given Tyler's own plot to murder the girlfriend out of jealousy. Tyler might also be asking his crush to look in the mirror, a call to reflect on his identity,

to really look at himself and be truthful about who that person is, sexuality and all. Tyler continues, I live life with no fear, except for the idea that one day you won't be here. It's ironic that Tyler's biggest fear is that this guy abandons him after just threatening to take his life if he doesn't get his way. It's another example of the way passion can drive us to illogical conclusions, saying and feeling one thing while consumed with rage, before quickly retracting when that rage dissipates into heartbreak.

Indeed, it's hard to take Tyler's claims of fearlessness seriously here when he's been driven by his fear of being abandoned this entire narrative. Tyler's next line, I will not fetch the ball, would feel like a step forward if it weren't for the dangerous aggression that surrounds it. He's claiming that he's no longer willing to be this guy's bitch and finally standing his ground. Tyler then calls back to the line, My eyes are green, I eat my vegetables from verse one,

but this time follows it with, it has nothing to do with that broad. This directly mirrors Erica Badu's line, it don't have nothing to do with your new friend, confirming the direct connection between New Magic Juan and Badu's green eyes. Tyler then says, If it did, guarantee she'd be gone. Again, our ability to trust Tyler is dwindling,

as he's just spent the majority of the song talking about eliminating the quote-unquote broad out of green-eyed envy. Tyler subtly keeps this eye analogy going as he switches his flow into a rapid-fire conclusion. Tyler Tyler Tyler begins with the job done you look at Tyler begins his new rapid delivery You're number one

Not the adjama shotgun To pack up your bags We hit the store Grab our supplies No need for masks To get the door Get the job done like what time And I man you look concerned

New Magic wand Tyler begins his new rapid delivery I got a plan But the walking depends If you can understand I'm a hawk in the gym Eyes on the prize Got weight on my chest

That I need to get off I ain't talking to them Tyler here claims to be hawkide able to see and lock into his prey from long distances. While he claims he has his eyes on the prize, his crush, his prey is clearly the girl, which he compares to weight on his chest. This is why he claims to be a hawk in the gym, because he'll have no trouble lifting the weight off his chest or picking off his prey.

These eyes reference call back to Igor's theme, when Tyler proclaimed, got my eyes open. Tyler is aware, keen to the details, noticing everything going on, and voicing frustration at the blindness of others. He continues this analogy saying, Can't be in the picture if it got no frame. Once again calling back to the song's original photo metaphor,

Tyler plays with the idea of a picture frame, but given the running gym metaphor, he's also referring to the body's frame. It's yet another murder illusion. The girl can't be in the picture if she's dead, if her actual frame or body is in the ground. Tyler's threats continue, and let the world know because I ain't got no shame,

blow up the whole spot because I ain't. And while this line is cut off on the album, the official lyric sheet completes the line, Got No Aim. The literal interpretation of blowing the whole spot up continues his violent intent, and Got No Aim means he'll recklessly point his weapon anywhere and just destroy everything.

But blowing up someone's spot is also slaying for revealing someone's secret. In this way, Tyler is threatening his crush that he'll let the girl or the world know that he has feelings for men and or that they've been secretly having a relationship. This is a particularly toxic moment for Tyler. As we addressed in our last episode, we know he understands that his crush is having difficulties accepting his own sexuality in the very same way that Tyler himself was uncomfortable in his past,

and so to reveal this before his crush is ready feels especially vindictive. He prides further into this as he continues, Keep it on the low, I'm in my right mind, keep it on the high. Tyler contrasts his crushes desire to keep it on the low or maintain secrecy with his own desire to keep it on the high, to live freely in who they are. While Tyler is clearly acting crazy, he claims sanity, or being in his right mind. Perhaps the right thing to do is to live freely,

but his current methods of pushing his crush to arrive at that place prematurely are self-serving. Again, it's even more problematic given Tyler's own history. In fact, the idea of keeping it on the low, Mir is almost exactly the line, had to keep it on the subwiffer from Flower Boy's Garden Shet, the song in which Tyler revealed his feelings for men and expressed his longtime reservations and fears in doing so.

As New Magic One ramps up to its climactic conclusion, Tyler executes a new internal rhyme scheme, rapping Janice Joplin, Spillin' Feelings, Now I'm Out Here Mopping Him. The reference to the iconic 60 singer-songwriter Janice Joplin directly follows the line, Keep It on the High, point into Joplin's infamous heroin use

that ultimately led to her untimely death at age 27. The idea of mopping up his spilled feeling speaks to Tyler's emotions boiling over, making a mess of the situation. But given the track's murderous throughline, we also think of Tyler mopping up blood after executing his crush and the girl. There's also a chance that Tyler is alluding specifically to the night of Janice Joplin's death.

At the time, Joplin was involved in a love triangle of sorts, with her male fiancé and her female on and off again lover. The night of Joplin's death, the trio arranged to have a threesome, but the fiancé and the girlfriend never showed up, and Joplin overdosed on heroin in her hotel room. If Tyler was intentionally referencing this incident, the idea of being abandoned leading to death does align with the song's central premise, albeit tangentially. Tyler then ends the lengthy outroverse revealing the plan he alluded to just a few

lines back, saying four in the floor, pack up your bags, we hit the store, grab our supplies, no need for masks, bust through the door, get the job done like retirement, I admit you look concerned, new magic wand. Tyler here describes a getaway scenario, with him and his crush packing up their things, murdering the girl, and making a run for it and leaving town. There's clever wordplay throughout, beginning with four on the floor, which is a phrase, used to reference a bass drum pattern common in dance music, like we heard back on I Think. But four on the floor also refers to a four-speed manual transmission, where the shift lever is mounted to the front floorboard. These had their heyday in the muscle cars of the

1960s, tying nicely into the Janice Dropplin reference while continuing to develop the album's car motif. It also evokes the phrase, floor it, fitting into the getaway scenario being described. Tyler then plays with the idea of wearing a mask while committing a crime, saying there's no need for masks, continuing the mask as a symbol for closeted sexuality first established on running out of time. And in this context, the following line, bust through the door, feels like another coded way to encourage his crush to come out, to bust through the closet door, so to speak, take off the mask and live in his truth openly. After a song as violent and malicious as new magic wand, the closing line, I admit you look concerned, almost feels like a joke. His crush has to be much more than concerned.

He's probably freaked the fuck out. Tyler's own closeted emotions and fear of abandonment finally exploding here is destructive. The irony is that Tyler's main concern back on earthquake was everything crashing down, things falling apart. And now due to his own impatience and lack of empathy, he's the one with the lighter in his hand, sending his world on fire. Conclusions. Back in 2015, Tyler discussed the importance of an album reflecting all sides of its creator. I think when you produce a album, you should get the person's personality. grab them. When I hear an album, I want to hear

who that is. And when I do my albums, you're getting me, especially the last album. You're getting me. Sometimes I'm jumping off the wall. Sometimes I'm really focused. Sometimes I'm really romantic. Sometimes I'm like, fuck the world. And I hate everything.

I think that's really important that you get to know the type personality that I am just based off listening to the music. Staying true to his commitment of a holistic presentation of self, New Magic Juan reveals Tyler at his most frustrated, jealous, and vindictive, exposing the darker territories of the mind that interpersonal relationships can uniquely illuminate. The pendulum of passion can swing from love to violence with disturbing ease,

and Tyler's honest expression of the uglier side of emotion is human in its omission that each of us can turn this dark. Try as we might to forge our will on the world. we cannot always control the feelings of others. We can't always get what we want. And the resulting grief, frustration, and sense of injustice can manifest itself in the ugliest of ways. The ultimate symbol of violence, the gun, the so-called magic wand, is Tyler's desperate, delusional attempt at exerting power when feeling powerless,

a moment of agonizing insecurity and despair memorialized as a murder fantasy. In this way, we're reminded of the beautiful and the ugly musical dichotomy so present in Igor. As Tyler said, New Magic One is the fully articulated sound he's been chasing his entire career, fusing the wretched, nightmarish energy of bastard and goblin, the explosive chaos of Cherry Bomb, and the refined elegance, vulnerability, and maturity of Flower Boy. From its gorgeous piano harmonies to the gross aggression of the distorted sins, Igor's deliberate juxtaposition is beginning to reveal itself as a strategic portrayal of the spectrum of human emotions explored through the album, catalyzed by this relationship gone awry. Of course, the feelings of anger on New Magic

Wan do not lead Tyler to actually murder someone. Rather, he transformed his dark energy into creative energy, expressing and thereby expelling his rage. In art, in Igor, Tyler creates an alter ego to safely channel his emotions, a vessel for catharsis through which we listeners can also find relief. This is quite literally the magic of music, the strange, inexplicable ways in which it can transform our mental. mood, absorb our pain, comfort our grief, and connect us through shared universal human emotion, where we can feel less alone in the things that we feel. While this quality of music reveals itself most obviously in sentimental ballads, New Magic One stands to represent the feelings we are

often too embarrassed or proud to admit, because sometimes we do feel petty, sometimes we are vindictive, sometimes we hurt so badly ourselves that we wish suffering upon others, even though we know these feelings are wrong. Songs like New Magic One help us exercise these demons, listening at full volume, screaming every word at the top of our lungs no matter how terrible her voice might sound. And it's this quality that Tyler would often talk about when performing the song live. He began by giving some of the musical reasons New Magic Juan is his favorite, but ultimately ended by celebrating how terrible the song sounds live. My favorite song I've made today.

I've mixed every element of music that I like it. Unfortunately, during the live version, you can't really hear the stacking of it because for four fucking minutes, I'm yelling on stage sounding terrible. The next four minutes is by technical performing standards. It's terrible. Right?

But that's the fucking purpose. Indeed, New Magic Wand is a song for the beautiful when feeling ugly, for the lover feeling malignant, for the sentimental, feeling insensitive. In its honest encapsulation of human emotion, New Magic Wand is a song for us all. This episode of Dysect was written by Camden Ostrander and me. If you enjoyed today's episode, please tell a friend about the show or share on social media and tag at Dysect podcast.

It really helps. limited season 10 merchandise can be purchased at dissectpodcast.com. Audio editing by Kevin Pooler, song recreations by Andrew Atwood, theme music by Beoracrattit. All right, thanks everyone. Talk to you next week.