Concept albums have to
be my favorite pieces of work because they keep the album more
interesting like I've mentioned in my profile. It's like watching a
movie without the visuals; hence, you get to use your imagination to
visualize what's going on.
The Downward Spiral
constantly skirts between noise and melody in much the same way the man
described in the lyrics will struggle between humanity and Nihilism. Trent Reznor uses every instrument, including his voice, to it's full potential. Each and every song is filled with vast amounts of emotion and feeling. The guitars become heavier, the drums beat harder, his vocals strain when the man is aggressive; the guitars become tranquil, the drums soften, his vocals become melodic when the man is passive. Reznor put every ounce of emotion he could into this album making it one of his best creations to date.
Stripped down to it's basic framework, The Downward Spiral
is the state of modern man living in a world of absolute ideologies
that have escaped his grasp and now betray him rather than serve him.
He is a man in a world that imprisons him with the freedom it promises,
then draws him to either self-destruction, stagnation, or abuse. The Downward Spiral is a story about a man who defied, killed, then became God, through sexual and violent acts; this man portrays Trent Reznor.
Mr. Self-Destruct:
A song that hints at the themes of the album, and foreshadows the
events that are to come. The implications are that self-destruction
lies in what you desire the most, because it is that which holds the
true power over you.
Piggy:
The actual story begins with with this song. Piggy refers to an
ex-lover who no longer needed the character. When the main character is
rejected, his control is shattered and he's left impotent. The piggy's
ability to escape his grasp injures him to the core and leaves him
chanting pathetically the mantra that will re-manifest itself later on,
nothing can stop me now.
Heresy:
This song is about the man's metaphysical rebellion against God and the
kingdom of God. When the character dethrones God in a fit of
indignation, he does more than just kill the deity. When the kingdom of
God falls all that was tied to it falls as well, including any
sense of meaning or moral order. Although he does not yet realize it,
this act that promised absolute freedom ensures that the he will be
enslaved.
March Of the Pigs:
This song is a clear denunciation of a greedy, cannibalistic world
whose members thrive on watching the downfall of others. The man's
hatred of this world makes him desire it to suffer the same fate to
which it condemns its victims. The world he sees himself up against is
not a world of humans, but God's kingdom of puppets, or pigs, made in
His image. The man cannot connect with this world, he cannot come to
terms with its uncaring disposition. He is unable to see others as
human, unable to love or trust another. He can't be a part of this
world so it must pay.
Closer:
This song is about how the complete submission of his partner to all
his abuses, or power and control, empowers the man in the most complete
way. And through this empowerment he is able to escape his life as a
helpless victim and feel what he perceives to be the control of God.
The man knows that on some level, his control is an illusion, but he
accepts it anyway; In fact, one of the paradoxes of his life, at this
point, is that he is ready to surrender himself completely for control
of another.
Ruiner:
This song is about the most explicit condemnation of not only God, but
as well as of any faith in God. The man's perception of his
relationship with God is one of control and abuse. It is the same as
the relationship he had with the piggy and with society, only the roles
are reversed. He is now at the height of his power, and the mantra of
nothing can stop me now is no longer weak and pathetic as it was in the
song piggy. But he is cut short in mid-sentence at the end of the song;
nothing can stop... Apparently something can and will stop him,
something that has been working against him all along, something with
more power to hurt him than God. The source of his deception, himself.
The Becoming:
This song is about when he begins to realize what kind of path he is
truly on. The suffering man who once rebelled against the cruel nature
of his situation now finds inside himself something crueler; the
nihilistic voice of indifference. After God is eliminated, the focus on
the album is on a new struggle, an internal one. The humanity of the
man finds itself up against its mechanical counterpart. Deeper than his
conflict with God, this conflict threatens to take his humanity from
him and replace it with a mechanical world of social and moral
stagnation. At this point the man knows what he has done, knows that he
has betrayed himself, but doesn't know what to do about it. When the
song breaks, something within the man cannot accept what is happening,
and is trying to resist, but can't find the strength to do anything but
to hide passively. He knows it can't remain hidden forever, but he
cannot act. Backed into a corner, the human voice finally discovers the
strength to protest, moving from passive to active resistance, with a
tortured scream, it won't give up, it wants me dead, god damn this
noise inside my head.
I Do Not Want This:
At this point something changes, the music becomes more chaotic and
piercing. As the human voice is once again ready to be subdued, another
option is discovered. The next phase of the metaphysical rebellion
becomes clear in the midst of the noise. The mechanical voice was able
to arise out of the absence of meaning, so perhaps the character can
escape it by establishing a new moral order. He reaches for the
unoccupied throne. Finally, he tells himself, I will have absolute
power. I will be totally free. I will be untouched by the limits of
humanity. Finally he rises up and does something that matters. Now he
will become the ruiner.
Big Man With A Gun:
The man is now in God's position. But just as the ruiner terrorized
him, he will terrorize others. His whole conception of God was of one
who controlled and abused, not because the nature of God is such, but
because his own nature is such. The man's tragic flaw is that he is
unable to connect with the world around him, to see others as humans
rather than pigs, and because of this he can only be a ruiner. This
kingdom of man is loud, violent, frantic, and anything but stable. As
the man screams, nothing can stop me now, his world is once again
collapsing around him. Try as he might, man cannot take the place of
God; it is not within his power. So the character's attempt to assume
the role fails, throwing him back to the fate that had already almost
conquered him; his mechanical side.
A Warm Place:
This song is as sad as it is beautiful. Following the failing fury of
big man with a gun, this instrumental is hauntingly tranquil. The song
represents a major turning point in the story; it is a tragic moment of
profound realization. All that he has done has finally been made clear,
his shift from ruined to ruiner, and his role at the center of it all.
He realizes that his entire life has been a continuing cycle of
inflicting pain upon others inorder to escape his own pain, and the
humanity still intact within him is horrified. He sees the violence he
is, and will be responsible for. A new option is opened up for him, a
new way to escape the mechanical voice that has retreated but is not
yet conquered: death. No longer will he seek to escape himself through
others he tells himself. He is willing to accept the pain of his life
and break the cycle in the only way he sees possible. There are no
audible lyrics to this song but in the first 15 seconds there is a
unheard whisper saying, the best thing about life is knowing you put it
together. This song is my favorite on this album.
Eraser:
This song is basically a vocalization of the revelations made in a warm
place. The violence he directs towards himself is desperate, he needs
someone to end his life. He's not yet willing to do this himself, to
take that final step in which he will reject, in the only way possible
to him at this point, the unacceptable nature on which his life was
based. The final step taken on the road to the downward spiral occurs
at this stage where he has accepted death but still cannot pull the
trigger. Indecision causes him to once again look for another way out.
It seems as if the character went to a prostitute, or a woman with the
same degree of indifference as him, in order to find some alternative
kind of control; one that requires him to give nothing, and yet harms
nobody. However, what he finds within her and within himself only
serves to utterly disgust him. His description of her in reptile is
cold and unflattering, to say the least.
Reptile:
In the reptile he finds the icy indifference he is fleeing from within
himself. She is a liar who will submit to his desires and say what he
wants to hear, but means none of it. She is incapable of feeling
anything towards him and supplies him with sex as freely as she did for
the man before him and will for the man after. When he says, my disease
my infection, I am so impure, he realizes that he is once again being
driven by his disease and impurity, or his need to control others, and
accepts the fact that he has lost all his options. In the midst of the
song there is a cut back to the music of a warm place, once again
signifying realization.
The Downward Spiral:
This song begins with static followed by an acoustic guitar striking
the end notes of closer, establishing the link between the two songs,
illustrating the way in which his false notions about God, sex and
control led him to the events described in the downward spiral. The
mechanical side of the character observes the suicide in a detached
manner, as if he isn't affected; he watches as the gun is now aimed at
its wielder just as it was once aimed at another in big man with a gun.
The recurring imagery of the gun, or a phallic symbol which represented
his idea of godlike control through sex, being pointed to someone's
head showing the violent nature of the ruiner he had become is now
completely focused upon himself, actually becoming the agent of his
demise. But now something has changed. There has been a shift, from he
couldn't believe how easy it was, to spilling out of my head. The man
is doing more than escaping the mechanical voice through suicide, more
importantly, he is killing it along with him. The man knew that due to
his inability to relinquish his need for control, he had no chance
to escape indifference, so he sacrificed his life rather than letting
it overcome him, thus unknowingly affirming a solid value, a meaning:
Human feeling over nihilistic indifference. The tragedy is that he
could only make this affirmation through an act that is essentially
nihilistic.
Hurt:
This song is the most solitary manifestation of the human voice. In
theory, this is a triumph, a victory for humanity, but in reality it
was too costly. Even though the human side of the man is what somehow
survives beyond death, it is still scarred, unfamiliar with anything
other than pain. He now reflects on what he has done and regrets it.
The purity and unity that he sought in life still hasn't been found.
The final verse: if i could start again, a million miles away, I would
keep myself, I would find a way, is proof of the character's growth.
Tragically, it is after his death that he reaches this point. He boldly
affirms his desire to keep his humanity as a value and a meaning that
human beings can realize. Hurt is the purest statement of the man's
feelings, the most personal song Reznor claims to have written.
This album has definitely made a great impression on not only me, but many others. As human beings, we must
learn to live as human beings and to do without the absolutes we can
never obtain. It is time to forget about the absolute freedom that can
only be obtained at the expense of others. In order to experience
freedom, we must let others be free by allowing them to have what we want for ourselves.
Only then can our lives as humans affirm any real value, only then will
relationships stop being tyrannical and be based on free and mutual
giving as well as receiving. We must find ourselves; learn once again
how to care for others as well as ourselves, only then, can we escape
nihilism and violence.
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