Dissect - S3E12 - Skyline To + Self Control by Frank Ocean

Episode Date: August 14, 2018

Today's special double episode dissects "Skyline To" and "Self Control" by Frank Ocean, two songs that reflect deeply on summer romance. Listen to Dissect on Spotify and get episodes a week early plus access to exclusive bonus episodes. Follow @dissectpodcast on Twitter and Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Spotify Studios, this is Dissect, long-form musical analysis broken into short digestible episodes. I'm your host, Cole Kushner. Today we continue our serialized analysis of Blonde by Frank Ocean. On our last episode, we dissected the song Solo, a series of lyrical vignettes that accumulated into a multifaceted exploration of the word solo, and a meta-examination of the internal push-pull relationship between the heaven and hell within us all. Blonde continues with a malefluous portrait of summer romance, the brief but beautiful Skyline 2. On comes the evening, seeking peace in my hand worth twice than a friend. Skyline 2 was written by Frank Ocean, Tyler the Creator, and Christoph Chasol.

Along with writing and arrangement credits, Chasol plays keyboard and the Moog solo featured in the song's bridge. Frank heard about the French composer Christoph Chasol by way of the artist Diplow. The two had been listening to Chasol's album, India Moore, which features Chasol's speech harmonization, a compositional technique in which the human voice and sounds from nature are treated like melodic instruments and are harmonized with keyboards and various other instruments. My love. Music is God. My love.

Music is God. My love. Music is God. Music is God. My love. Music is God. My music is God. My love.

Music is God. My love. Music is God. Frank invited Chasol to work with him at the Abbey Road studio in London. Regarding his experience, Chasol told Red Bull Media, quote, We spent time at nights working, playing, play. We talked about music, art, nations, culture, blackness, so many things. I have no idea what will end up on his album yet, but I enjoyed the work very much.

It brought me to tears at some points. The voice of the guy. There is something deep in there. He made me think of Michael Jackson, unquote. The fact that Skyline 2 is so pretty, in many ways disguises the fact that it's one of the more experimental songs on the album. With Frank's solo voice proclaiming, this is joy, this is summer. Sounds begin to slowly emerge from silence in the same way Don emerges slowly from twilight.

First, we hear bird calls, likely a contribution of Christoph Chasol, who is known to use them extensively in his work. There's also a soft trilling synthesizer that's panned to the right speaker. A guitar then stumbles into the mix, marked by a false start, almost like it's waking up. As the song progresses, a soft pattering of drums emerge. Now the interesting thing about these drums, which are credited to Tyler the creator, is a healthy amount of effects they're concealed in. Let's take a listen to an approximation of this drum pattern with the effects removed. To create the distant soft pattering we hear on Skyline 2, a lot of the low and high-end frequencies

are removed. Add some reber and parallel compression, and you get something that sounds like it's coming from another room a few doors down. These affected drums, guitar, synth, and bird calls comprise the main element of the song's opening verse, setting a serene outdoor environment over which Frank DeLille delivers an intimate reflection about a summer love. This is joy, this is summer. Keep alive, stay alive. Got your metal on.

We're alone. Making sweet love, taking time. God, strikes us. That's a pretty fucking fast year flew by. That's a pretty long third gear in this car. Gliding on the fire. The deer run across, killer headlikes. Pretty fucking underneath moonlight now.

Frank Begins, Got Your Medals on, were alone, making sweet love, taking time, till God strikes us. This opening sequence establishes an intimate love scene that is deemed sinful in the eyes of God. There seems to be two possible interpretations of why that may be the case. Got Your Medal on could refer to a wedding ring, and so Frank's lover is meant. married, and therefore their sexual encounter is adultery. But considering Frank's fluid sexual preference, it could be a reference to the sin of homosexuality, as portrayed by many religions across culture and time. Specifically, the Bible passage Leviticus 2013 states, quote, If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what

is detestable. They are to be put to death. Their blood will be on their own heads, unquote. Frank continues, that's a pretty fucking fast. year flew by, that's a pretty long third gear in this car, gliding on the five. Frank compares their year together gliding as fast as the car they're driving on Highway 5, an interstate that runs through California, Oregon, and Washington. But standing the third gear is long, Frank could be implying that despite the year going fast, the moments with this person seem to last forever. As the verse comes to a close, Frank cleverly plays with the phrase, pretty fucking, first as commentary on the beautiful moonlight, then as a reference to their having sex beneath the moonlight.

We'll listen to that phrase again, followed by the entrance of the song's hook, which comes with it a shift in musical environment. Pretty fucking underneath moonlight now. Pretty fucking sun rising sight. And comes the morning hunting us with the beams, so sustained as far as it used to be. It begins to blur we get older. Blame.

Summer's not as long as it used to be. Every day counts like crazy. Smoke. Hey. Wanna get soaked. Want to film a tape on a speedball. We smell a californication. Frank sings, Sunrise in sight.

In comes the morning, hunting us with the beams. This line seems to refer back to the two lines of the opening verse. Daylight, hunting them seems to tie in with the God strikes us notion of persecution the song began with. Hunting us with the beams refers to the deer in the headlights also mentioned in the verse. The hook continues, Solis ain't as far as it used to be. It begins to blur. We get older. Summer's not as long as it used to be. Every day counts like crazy.

Frank succinctly expresses the experience of growing older, where time moves faster than it did when we are young. According to scientific study, reason for our shift in time perception has to do with the way our brain selectively stores experiences. When experiencing or learning something new, our brain encodes it into memory, more so than when experiencing something familiar. The more memories you create over a given time, the longer that time will seem when remembering. Of course, when we're young, life is full of new experiences, and as we age, our lives tend to get more routine-oriented as we settle into marriages and careers in children. We therefore have proportionally less new experiences as we age, and as a consequence,

our adolescence becomes overrepresented in our memories, as it's abundant with novel experiences. When viewed this way, Skyline 2 reads like a race against time. Sunrises and sunsets become representative of the passing of time, which seems to be the reason they're framed as a persecuting phenomenon, a reminder of how the sand and the hourglass of our lives is ever dwindling toward death. It's here that the opening lines of the song come into focus. This is joy, this is summer. Keep alive, stay alive. As we'll see throughout blonde, summer is this season Frank seems to be extremely fond of, a season in which many of his most memorable experiences are created. With the song's love interest, Frank attempts to keep alive the joy of summer through new and compelling

romantic experiences, a race against time that's now moving more rapidly as he ages. This notion would seem to explain the following lines, want to get soaked, want to film a tape on the speedboat, we smell of Californication. This seems to be a reference to the Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee sex tape that leaked in 1996, which features the two having sex on a boat and smoking weed. Frank is looking to make more memorable experiences with this person as summer, as time itself, grows increasingly shorter. Skyline 2 progresses into an extended instrumental break as a Moog synthesizer plays a dreamy solo based on a whole tone scale. Just as we heard night turned today in the song's first hook, the second repetition sees day

turn into night. Frank sings, on comes the evening, gold seeking ends. Gold plays off the notion of the golden hour of sunset, but also alludes to the phrase, nothing gold can stay. The origins of this phrase, which roughly means nothing good could last forever, comes from the 1923 poem by Robert Frost. It's a poem that finds many thematic parallels with Skyline 2, and its notion that life's most memorable moments, that time itself, is forever fleeting. Now I'd like to turn our attention to the closing lines of Skyline 2. In Comes the Morning, which is repeated twice. This is coming This is the morning

This concluding The song that's just three minutes in length. Frank signals a change tonight with the line underneath Moonlight now. The first hook marks another change to daylight and after the song's bridge, the second hook marks yet another change to night. Finally, the song ends with another change to morning. In a song about how time passes quicker as we age,

all these abrupt shifts from day to night seem to be portraying that experience of time passing quickly before our eyes. Throughout the track, Frank holds tight to moments and preserves his experiences, a kind of fight against the persecution of the relentless march of time. And it's here that I'd like to return to Robert Frost's poem, nothing gold can stay. We know Frank is a fan of Frost as he's posted a Frost poem on his tumbler back in 2011. At just eight lines long, nothing gold can stay is a poem worth reading now, as I believe it's a thematic kindred spirit of Ocean Skyline 2. As I read it, you'll hear Frost outline the impermanence of spring flowers, itself a metaphor for the fleeting moments of youth, the decay of

innocence as we grow older and the inevitable deterioration of perfection, all notions encapsulated in ocean skyline too. Quote, nature's first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold, her early leaves of flower, but only so an hour. Then leaves subsides to leaf, so Eden sank to grief, so dawn goes down to day, nothing gold can stay. We'll be back right after the break. Welcome back to dissect. Before the break, we discussed the track, Skyline 2, an ode to summer, summer love, and the fleeting nature of time and life itself. Skyline 2 elapses directly into the opening moments of Blond's next track, the subject of the rest of our episode today, self-control. Pullside convo, about your summer last night, oh, about your summer last night.

I give you no play, could I make it shy last night? Could I make it shot on the last night? Could we make it end? Do we have a day? Be the boyfriend. And you're with dreams tonight. Self-control is written by Frank Ocean with production by Ocean, Malay, and John Bryan. As we just heard, the track opens with a pitched up vocal passage.

We know from our analysis of Nike's and Ivy, Frank uses voice modulation on blonde to portray a younger version of himself. The passage found on. self-control is actually an excerpt of a longer rap titled Poolside Convo, a piece Frank has since performed live as an extended introduction to self-control. Grandmoney told me, them wrong for no police. Fuck them, grandma me told me, watch out for your partners. I love them, they're too much older, won't you stay in your range?

I'm just trying to sponge me, trying to know some things. See the mailman keep coming, and bills keep on coming in. All you want to do is fight me on this shit. Say, don't go bend to your wrist, don't go be in no sister. Okay, don't go lock no doors. You ain't paying no rent this bitch, okay. Checks are used to bring them one going to make no difference in this bitch. Now the checks I bring a me who else paying to rent this bitch.

Landlords see me outside won't take a picture. Said I got an autograph on a check. I take it with you. Said the house on sell you want to buy it. Said not this one. Poolside combo begins with Frank recalling things his grandmother told him when he was young, including hanging around with older kids and perhaps dissuading his sexual preferences.

As she says, quote, Don't go bending your wrist. Don't go being no sissy. Toward the end of the piece, Frank switches gears to parting at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. He says, Bacchon at Bacchus, that was the first parade. A reference to the crew of Bacchus, a parade on the Sunday evening before Mardi Gras. He closes with two lines that play off Michael Jackson to allude to drug use at Bacchus. He says, cups of methasine had him lean like Michael Jackson, which compares being high on the drink lean with Jackson's famous leaning dance move.

Next he says, and he was fucking with your nose trying to be a Jackson, using Jackson's many nose jobs to allude to cocaine use. Let's listen to an excerpt of these concluding lines of poolside combo and hear how they seamlessly transition into the opening moments of self-control. Yeah, bopping that box is that was the first parade. Bounce free mixes of a lead had the spinal cord. Crack it. Compson methamphetamine had them lean like Michael Jackson. You was fucking with your nose trying to be a Jackson. Oh yeah, poolside combo about your summer last night. Ain't give you no plate, could I make a shot last night?

Yeah! Could I make a shot on the last night? Hearing how seamless this transition is, we might assume poolside combo and self-control are thematically connected in some way. Specifically, we might suspect New Orleans to be the time and place Frank draws from on self-control. Remember, New Orleans is where Frank lived until moving to Los Angeles in the mid-2000s. This would likely explain the pitched up voice on the beginning of self-control as a way to harken back to that time. Frank sings, poolside convo about your summer last night. Ain't give you no play. Could I make you shive last night?

Could I make you shy on the last night? Could we make an end? Do we have time? It would seem Frank is heavily alluding to sex with someone who will be leaving soon. He uses a term shive, which is 90s New Orleans slang for. cool or good, more evidence suggesting the setting here is New Orleans during Frank's young adulthood. He also mentioned summer specifically, as he did on Blond's previous track, Skyline 2. But before we get too deep into our lyrical analysis of self-control, I would like to pause and take a few minutes to appreciate the song's musical arrangement. The track centers around a

single electric guitar, the majority of which is played by Alex G, an indie musician from Philadelphia. Alex G is known for a series of self-recorded albums released on the community website bandcamp. To give you a sense of Alex G's musical style, let's hear an excerpt of the song Mary from his 2015 album, Trick. Regarding his contributions to blonde and endless, Alex G spoke with run-for-cover records back in 2015. Like for self-control, he wrote the chords and he was like, can you just play these in a different way? He wanted me to play it more soulfully or something, I forget. But then I did that and I did like little riffs on top of it. And then there's an ending part that's not me in self-control.

I just do like the beginning chords. As we just heard, Alex G was given a chord progression Frank composed and it was his job to rearrange it, to play it more soulfully. The chord progression he was given was an A-flat major 7, F-minor 7, B-flat minor 7, and E-flat-dominant 7. Now in the hands of Alex G, these chords are transformed into a self-sufficient guitar part that carries the entire first half of the song.

He does this by chopping up the chords into independent parts, beginning with the bass note of the chord played on the downbeat on beat 1. Next, he covers the strings of his guitar with his hand, so that when strummed, they make a percussed plucked sound. This falls on beat 2, which is typically where a snare drum is placed in a typical drum pattern. This plucked percussive sound on the guitar acts as a substitute for that snare drum, establishing the beat or rhythm of the piece. Next, Alex plays the actual fully developed chord on the upbeat of beat 2,

which establishes the harmony. Because it's played on the upbeat, this also adds rhythmic interest as the chord sustains past beat 3 and into beat 4. And on beat 4, the last beat in the measure, Alex either plays again the percussive muted click, reinforcing the overall rhythm, or adds complexity by doing some type of melodic flourish or riff to help keep the progression from becoming monotonous and predictable. And so put all these elements together, the root note played on

beat 1, the percussive click on beat 2, the strum chord on the upbeat of beat 2, and the accent and melodic flourishes of beat 4, and we get the basic guitar pattern used throughout the first half of self-control. Because Alex G's arrangement is so self-sufficient, meaning it has a very much. enough rhythmic, harmonic, and dynamic interest to hold its own without a drumbeat, Frank's voice takes center stage, allowing us to hear every nuance of his virtuosic vocal performance. sings, I'll be the boyfriend in your wet dreams tonight. As wet dreams are most common in adolescence, this line seems to confirm what we've been suspecting, that this relationship took place when Frank was younger while living in New Orleans. We also might assume the love

interest was male, as wet dreams are typically associated with males, though women experience them too. As the verse continues, we get another allusion to adolescents, quote, noses on a rail, little virgin wears the white. This seems most obviously a reference to sniffing rail or lines of cocaine, continuing the drug use references of poolside convo. But saying Little Virgin wears the white seems a deliberate word choice to evoke youth. The color white is also classically symbolic of purity, virginity, and innocence. Frank continues, you cut your hair, but you used to live a blinded life. Now there's some debate on whether Frank says blinded or blondeed here.

I've listened to this passage countless times, and I still can't really determine which of these he's saying. and lyric sheets online have both words depending on which one you're looking at. Have another listen. You cut your hair, but she used to live a blinded life. Wish I was there. Whether it's blondeed or blinded, the meaning of this passage is more or less the same, in my opinion.

Frank seems to be using hair as symbolic of juvencence, that the mop of long hair typical of boys and teenagers sways across their face and eyes, a metaphor for their blissful naivety, blinded perception of the harsh realities of adulthood. Cutting one's hair shorter, as we often do as we age, therefore becomes symbolic of growing older as we realize life's complications and responsibilities. If the word is indeed blonded, not blinded, we might suspect Frank is using blonde hair in a similar metaphoric way. Many kids have blonde hair in their youth, only to see that

hair darken when they hit puberty. Living a blondeed life would then symbolize the same thing as blinded, youth, innocence, adolescence, but also evokes the yellow color of summer, tying into a prominent theme of the album. Frank continues, wish I was there, wish we'd grown up on the same advice, and our time was right. It's here we realize the reasons this relationship didn't last, timing, and contrasting worldviews. Indeed, regarding self-control, Frank told the New York Times, quote, this was written about someone who I was actually in a relationship with, who wasn't an unrequited situation. It was mutual. It was just we couldn't really relate. We weren't really on the same wavelength, unquote. Self-control continues with the song's hook.

Self-control's hook is performed by Austin Feinstein, singer of the band's Slow Hollows. His voice is pitched up on the first repetition of the hook, the version we just heard. On the song's second hook, Feinstein's natural voice takes prominence while the pitched-up vocal is intermittently mixed in. Keep a place. I'll sleep between y'all. It's nothing. He actually wanted. It's nothing. Feinstein told Fader magazine, quote, Frank had a couple versions of self-control and a couple different people singing the same part. It never really came together right. He actually wanted either a female vocalist or me to sing higher. I'm just not capable of anything like that.

It would just sound horrible and forced. It just wouldn't sound like singing. So I was like, okay, rather than forcing something, I'm just going to do what I do, and if he hates it, that's fine. That's just what I do. And he actually liked it a lot. That was lucky, unquote. The lyrics that Feinstein sings, quote,

Keep a place for me. I'll sleep between y'all. It's nothing. It would seem these lyrics were inspired by Prince's When You or Mine, Frank's favorite song of all time. Prince sings, I was never the kind to make a fuss when he was there, sleeping in between the two of us. I know that you're going with another guy. I don't care because I love you. It seems the sentiment here is the same on ocean's self-control. Despite he and his

lover moving on from one another, Frank's love for this person remains pure, so pure in fact that he doesn't mind this person being with someone else, so long as they keep a place in their heart for him. Self-control continues with verse two. Now and then you miss it, sounds make you cry. Some nice shit dance with tears in your eyes I came to visit cause you see me like a UFO That's like never Because I made you use your self-control

And you made me lose my I'm self-control My self-control Frank begins the verse Now and then you miss it Sounds make you cry Some nights you dance with tears in your eyes This may be a reference to another song from the 1980s

Ultravoxes dancing with tears in my eyes The lyrics here are quote We love the sound of our favorite song over and over Dancing with tears in my eyes Living out a memory of a love that died It's a similar sentiment to the opening of self-rength control's second verse. It expresses one of the things I'm sure all of us have experienced. There's a particular song that was the song of a relationship. And no matter how many years

have passed since the end of that relationship, whenever you hear the song, it brings you back to that time and conjures up feelings and experiences you had with that person. Self-control's second verse concludes, I came to visit because you see me like a UFO. That's like never, because I made you use your self-control. And you made me lose my self-control. Here, Frank contrasts both using and losing one's self-control. Because Frank's lover has someone else, he uses self-control to keep Frank at a distance. But because Frank loses his self-control, he comes to see him anyway, making his appearance an unexpected and rare sight, a phenomenon he likens to seeing a UFO.

Again, it's one of those lines that taps into the universal experience of a messy breakup, where complex feelings linger, where we lose self-control and do or say things out of character. from late-night texts to drunken emotional phone calls, we're often at our most vulnerable when the structure of a relationship crumbles, and like the last flickering embers of a once-blazing fire, all that's left are residual feelings without a proper home. As self-control continues past the second hook, the musical landscape shifts into an instrumental bridge.

The guitar part changes from the rhythmic arrangement of Alex G to a slow, more straightforward arpeggiated plucking. Over this guitar part, we have a swelling string arrangement by John Bryan. Later a subtle reverse guitar part is added. Over this new musical material, we hear a lead melody, which sounds like it's Frank singing through a series of distorting effects to make his voice sound similar to a guitar. After this instrumental interlude, Frank enters again signaling for me one of the highest, most gorgeous moments of the entire album. Like something

Come in It's better in game Oh you got it Unlike everything up until this point The melody Frank sings is almost Sing-songy holding long single-note repetitions of simple words

When isolated It's actually fascinating How understated the lyrics are When compared to the enormous emotional impact they have when performed Frank sings I know you gotta leave Take down some summertime

Give up just tonight I know you got someone coming you're spit in game. I know you got it. We might suspect these lyrics in terms of the song's narrative to be a continuation of verse two. There, Frank went to see his former lover, an event he compared to a UFO sighting. Here on the outro, Frank acknowledges that his lover has to go, but still plays for just one more night together. He's lost his self-control, and he begs his ex to do the same. Interestingly, when we isolate the words Frank repeats three times, we get the phrase, tonight. Whether it's intentional or not, it does add a layer of lyrical complexity,

tying into the temporary nature of Frank's final visit to this person. The line, Take Down Some Summertime, is especially intriguing in this passage, as it relates to a growing theme of summer we're experiencing throughout blonde. We know that Frank and this X broke up because of timing. Many young couples part ways because there's too much experience to be had for either person to be tied down at such a young age. Taking down some summertime, seems to be a lot of to allude to such a scenario. Summer being a time when you're out of school and building a wealth of experience with friends and lovers.

Those experiences in summer flings is acknowledged in the subsequent lines. I know you got someone coming, you're spitting game. No, you got it. These concluding lines are similar in sentiment to the song's hook, in which Frank writes, Keep a place for me. I'll sleep between y'all, it's nothing. Frank doesn't mind this person moving on

and having romantic experiences with other people. all he's asking for is a modest acknowledgement of the love or mutual attraction between them. Of course, the literary analysis of these closing moments of self-control only scratched the surface when attempting to explain the emotional impact of this passage. In the hands of ocean, these words are transformed into a deeply moving experience. Building off our last episode in which we discuss Frisian, the phenomenon of experiencing chills when listening to music, I'd like to briefly point out two compositional techniques

that contribute to the emotional impact of this section. First, this passage is built on what's known as contrary motion. Contrary motion is when one melodic line ascends or moves upward, while another line simultaneously descends or moves downward. Here on self-control, the upward melodic line is found in Frank's vocal part. We begin with a repeating A-flat when Frank sings I-I-I-I. From there, the melody works its way higher and higher. As this upward motion occurs in the vocal,

melody, the chord progression Frank sings over works its way downward. The harmony begins with an A-flat major chord. The next chord is a C minor, which contains a G, one note lower than an A-flat. Next we get a chord outside the key signature, a G-flat major, G-flat being one note lower than the preceding G. The final chord is an F minor, which, you guessed it, contains a note one step lower than a G-flat, an F. Now let's hear the entire progression. and now let's isolate those downward descending notes contained in that progression. When we combine the ascending melody with the descending chords, we get really nice contrary motion, an effect that's pleasing to our ears.

It's also interesting that during this passage we get a kind of contrary motion alluded to in the lyrics, as Frank sings, take down some summertime, give up just a night. Whether it's intentional or not, all this contrary motion does tie in nicely to a song about two people moving in two different directions. Now the second compositional technique I'd like to hone in on is an inharmonic shift. You might remember the inharmonic shift from Adele's someone like you we discussed on our last episode. As a reminder, an inharmonic shift is when the note and a melody stays the same, but the harmony or chords played beneath it change. Because the context around the melodic note changes, it forces us to reinterpret the melodic note, creating an unexpected, unpredictable

moment that's known to induce frision. In the context, this ending passage of self-control, we get an inharmonic shift double whammy. It occurs midway through the passage when Frank sings just a night, night, night, and then I-I-I know you got someone coming. On night-night-night-night, Frank is singing in A-flat, while the chord beneath him is playing a C minor. When Frank begins to sing I-I-I-I, he sings again in A-flat. flat, but the chord beneath him changes to a G-flat major, and now both back to back as they appear in

the song. So we get an inharmonic shift, but the thing about that G-flat major chord is that it doesn't belong in the song's key signature. It's what we call a borrowed chord. I'll spare you the technical definition of a borrowed chord as it opens up a whole can of theoretical worms. All we need to know today is that it's a chord that doesn't belong, it falls outside the key signature, and whether you know it or not, your ears pick up on this as unusual, a kind of pleasant surprise. And this is what I meant when I said inharmonic double whammy. We have a standard inharmonic shift as the melody stays on the A-flat while the chords beneath it shift, plus the chord it shifts to is outside the key signature.

Both of these things happening simultaneously makes for a compelling, unexpected, and gratifying musical moment, perhaps even frision triggering for some of you. Of course, these two compositional components, contrary motion, and inhospital. harmonic shift, are just a few the many things going on here, and certainly don't fully explain why we feel the way we do when hearing this passage. But similar to our last episode, I wanted to hone in on a few specifics, if only to illustrate that behind the most impactful musical moments, there are techniques we can point to as partial explanation of why a piece in music moves us. It's perhaps the only thing we can turn to, at least for some explanation,

as music is an inherently mystifying and abstract phenomenon. We can only explain so much in words, And rightly so. As the German poet Heinrich Hein once said, quote, where words leave off, music begins, unquote. And so it goes, while studying the lyrics of a song like self-control or examining its musical components can deepen our appreciation for the craft of its composition, we do so only to heighten a visceral emotional experience of music, the real reason we all listen to music in the first place.

And for Frank Ocean, compositional technique is a means to a much more important end. When asked by the New York Times what he was reaching for when creating music, Frank is somewhat dismissive of musical tools, unsentimentally referring to them as objects. Quote, they're just chords, just melodies. I don't know what combination of those objects is going to make me feel how I need to feel, but I know precisely the feeling that needs to happen, unquote. Frank acknowledges that instruments, chords, melodies, lyrics, are but materials through and by which we invoke feeling and abstract expression.

Feeling is the highest of all aims, to express what we cannot with language alone. Indeed, the late romantic composer Gustav Mahler once said, quote, If a composer could say what he had to say in words, he would not bother trying to say it in music, unquote. Because how often in our lives are we left speechless or struggling to find words to explain with any accuracy our most transformative experiences or potent emotions?

Music is an intimation of the inexpressible. It gives form to the ineffable. filling the void the limitations of language leave us all with. Music reaches its hand into that darkness and produces things we perceive with more than just our senses. We say we feel music in our soul because our perception of a soul only manifests when it's touched, when it's moved,

and music, perhaps more than any other art form, has the capacity to do such a thing. I think a large part of why we admire great artists like Frank Goshen, a reason we so highly revere them, is because great artists act as means, mediary to a higher dimension, an usher into the unknown. All artists do this to some degree. It's just that the great ones bring us the closest to the divine. And perhaps the mark of a great artist, the ultimate barometer of their artistry, is how close they can escort us into that

higher dimension, how precisely they can articulate the unknown. The fundamental reason you're listening to this podcast is because you're curious about this strange phenomenon we call music. You want to learn more about this mysterious thing that moves you so deeply, and more than that, this thing you irrationally connect with in a way that simply cannot be explained or easily understood. It's an understandable curiosity, perhaps among the most ultimate of curiosities, because so much of music's power is a genuine mystery. It's unseen and inexplicable in the same way most of our world, our universe, even consciousness itself is unseen and inexplicable. Music is a glimpse into that unknown, an impression of the enigmatic, the shadow of a figure just out of sight. And most importantly,

when it's done well, when it's executed to its highest potential, music is just so fucking beautiful. Dysect is written and produced by me, original theme music by B-Rocratic, song recreations by Andrew Atwood. If you enjoy Dysect, consider telling a friend about the show and spread the word on social media. You can find me at Dissect Podcast on Twitter and Instagram and join our newsletter at dissectpodcast.com. Okay, thanks everyone. I'll talk to you next week.