"Faster Still" by The Fold, Thursday, November 4, 2021 [Trigger Warning: Suicide]
which are raw and are very personal to Castady. Taking the title of the record from a sentence graffitied on a truck stop bathroom stall, Secrets Make You Sick deserves a few listens. I was perhaps overly harsh on "Younger Than Our Years," a hooking melody that draws listeners in, but still that song and "New Skeptic" reek of youthful arrogance.
REMEMBERING THAT NIGHT WHEN THE POLICE PHONED MY HOUSE. If you can get past the arrogance, though, there are some very deep moments on the album. Castady talked with Jesusfreakhideout in 2007 in the middle of the Tooth & Nail Tour when MxPx had triumphantly returned to the label and headlined a semi-annual tour of the label's flagship bands. The story behind the songs are very personal, from the passing of Castady's mother and the grieving and healing of his father to a light-hearted song of encouragement to his sister. However, the most striking are the songs about his cousin, Andrew. These songs are "Faster Still" in the middle of the record, and "Revisited," the album closer. Castady revealed that his cousin was bi-polar and suffered from schizophrenia before he took his life. In "Faster Still," Castady recalls their childhood memories together, but laments about how quickly he deteriorated. The song is written about a time when Andrew was still alive. Castady recalls the year he "nearly lost" Andrew with a few vague, but poignant details about the police phoning his house. Daniel wonders if "covered in love" or "the lack thereof" is enough. "Revisited" imagines his cousin as a ghost, and Daniel raises questions about suicide, mental health, and salvation. He wonders if his cousin is "safely in God's arms or in eternal insurrection."
LISTEN TO ME WHEN I TELL YOU, YOU HAVE NO CONTROL. Punctuated with the late '80s/early '90s keyboard, "Faster Still" helped to paint a nostalgic picture for me. The production on this song sounds a little under-developed, especially for the recording technology of the time that it was recorded, but that keyboard really drew me into the song, making me think about those cold, late falls when the freeze begins in upstate New York. I remember one year that it snowed on Halloween--we had to cut short trick- or-treating to get home before the roads were impassible--and the snow stayed on the ground until March. I think about the people who I once knew, the unexpected deaths of former classmates I never kept in touch with. One classmate was training to be an Olympic swimmer, but drowned swimming in the river. Then I think about the year of suicides that struck my local church community when I was in high school. The calling committee ruining a beautiful fall afternoon with a message about calling hours for the man who had just given a sermon-length testimony about how God was freeing him from the chains of depression. Or the elder's son who slowly spiraled into drug addiction and hung himself on a chilly November afternoon. How quickly the narrative in church changes to love and compassion, even searching the scriptures to justify how he must have been out of his mind, so therefore, it must have been an incurable sickness that God would forgive. In our quiet moments, memories may haunt us like ghosts. But death is the ultimate reminder that we are not in control. We do not control the narrative of how we'll be remembered. We do not control our loved one's destiny. And ultimately we have little control over our own destiny. Whatever afterlife, or lack thereof, we have to trust or believe in a religion or something we ourselves have created. And that can be terrifying.
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