"And This Dying’s Just a Loop-Dee-Loo"
Two Songs of Phil Elverum Analyzed Through Joke-Mechanism Theory
by Ed Moorman

In the songs “Ut Oh! It’s Mourningtime Again” and “I Can’t Believe You Actually Died”, found in (among other places) the 2005 self-titled LP Singers, we can analyze Phil Elverum and his art through the joke-mechanism method. The joke-mechanism theory is founded on the idea that artists find control in the external world through their work; it springs from the pleasure principle, the child’s joy of playing with language which springs from the pleasure of finding control in one’s environment. In these works, Elverum continues to make sense of the big, frightening, unpredictable world in intimate little songs sung with a group of his friends. He uses his words to achieve control and stability in the face of the external world, where death, metaphorical and literal, is ever-present. And whether a piece is filled with puns and silliness or just has a bit of a lighter look at a crushing topic, he uses the pleasure principle as a tangent release of tension toward a stressful subject. In “Ut Oh! It’s Mourningtime Again”, Elverum explores a failing, mediocre relationship through a playful metaphorical death, and in “I Can’t Believe You Actually Died” he tries to make sense of the absurdity of the passing of a friend.

In “Ut Oh! It’s Mourningtime Again”, it is clear from the title alone that Elverum is taking great satisfaction in playing with language, in line with the joy of the control/release functions of the pleasure principle. The story of the song, as described by Elverum on the record sleeve, is that one night he dreamt it as a song sung by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy; upon awaking, he described the refrain, which went “uh oh, it’s morning time again,” to his friend Kyle Field on the phone, who fleshed out the song for his band Little Wings. Elverum then made the title a pun, and created his version of the song, which is not about death but “about being in a wishy-washy love relationship, sometimes celebrating, sometimes mourning, eventually becoming absorbed by the swamp” (Elverum). The course of the song vaguely and lightheartedly recollects the metaphorical death of a lover and therefore the love shared between the two, and then becoming trapped in a cave and bearing the brunt of Thanatos. Thanatos is the instinct to die a specific death, and to return to nothingness. This may not sound humorous, but it is expressed in language like, “So if she’s dead then I’m dead too… / and this dying is just a loop-dee-loo” (Elverum), sung adorably. He uses these silly words in the service of releasing the tension (pleasure principle) of a failing romance, brilliantly twisting it to appear to be about the gravest of topics, while retaining a witty, facetious tone. It ends with him feeling the force of Thanatos, the instinct to return to a state of non-being. He sings, “I huff and puff, I’m breathy, breezy. / Sometimes boiling, sometimes freezing: / I will be a dead body again!” and the chorus behind him repeats, “Ut oh! It’s mourningtime again!” (Elverum). After he tackles a metaphorical death in this song, he attempts to grasp a real one.
The title of “I Can’t Believe You Actually Died” spells out the entire song. According to Elverum’s explication in the liner notes, his reaction to his friend Brendan Schafer’s death was one of disbelief; it left in Elverum a feeling of strangeness that he could up and disappear without warning. “I have always been astonished by his ability to do this, to provide this illustration for us,” Elverum writes. He describes being in church and meeting and holding the baby of his childhood friends, and says, “My mourning was instantly complete. Some of us will die first. Some of us will keep on aging and trying to wrap our minds around the absences.” Crafting internal order from external chaos, he uses the experience as an incredibly direct memento-mori, reminding us of the fragility of life. Thus, the piece is about Phil Elverum feeling Eros, the life instinct. The very act of writing the song shimmers with the vibrant, creative instinct that radiates from Eros. “I can’t believe you made your parents cry! / I can’t believe the worms ate out your eyes!” he croons, in an attempt to understand the unfathomable gap between where he stands and the dirt in which Brendan Schafer lies. He tries to work through the absurdity of the passing in language so simple that it becomes comical: Elverum and the chorus repeats throughout, “I can’t believe you actually died.” Saying it so plainly, with such incredulity, is a release; to openly acknowledge how ridiculous this serious situation can seem. That these words are sung by a chorus, especially such an intimate-feeling collection of voices, reminds us that no one is alone in their grief. In the midst of Eros, Thanatos is still present; he tells us that he hasn’t cried “Because you’re not dead, you’re free... / The other side, the side I try to see. / I can’t believe you’re on that side.” There is the constant, always-resisted pull, to return to the Earth in the wilderness-centered world of his songs. In “The Glow, pt. 2” from the life-defining Microphones album of the same name, Elverum sings “I faced ‘death’ with my arms swinging / but in there I heard my own breath / and had to face ‘I’m still living.’” Phil Elverum works through the blow of the death, and ultimately sides with Eros and defies the strain of Thanatos, in the joke-mechanistic fashion of “I Can’t Believe You Actually Died”.

Phil Elverum sees these painful situations with a great sense of perspective; through his art, he is able to make sense of traumatic times and find stability. He is able to poke fun at the gravest of events, without sacrificing the emotional brunt that the audience might feel. In fact, in balancing humor and pathos, he is able to portray an honest, multifaceted view of his experiences. He bears the weight of Thanatos and Eros, he laughs and weeps, and both the listener and the chorus is right there with him.

Works Cited

1. Appignanesi, Richard and Oscar Zarate. Freud for Beginners. New York: Pantheon, 1979.
2. Microphones, the. “The Glow pt. two.” “The Glow,” pt. 2. K Records, 2001.
3. Singers. Singers. PW Elverum and Sun, Ltd., 2005.
4. Voights, Ruth. Lectures. Personality Theories: Narcissus in Chaos. Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis, MN. 2006.