“Many Funerals” by Eisley (partial repost), Tuesday, November 22, 2022 (trigger warning: discussion of a hate group and some explicit language regarding sexuality)

 

I've talked about Eisley, the named-for-Star-Wars sister/cousin band from Tyler, Texas. Their major-label debut garnered indie cred, but due to some issues in the music industry, the band's label de-prioritized their sophomore release, delaying it almost a year from its recording and mastering. As for promotion, the record label pulled radio support as they weren't sure which format to market the band and canceled plans for a second music video to the band's only non-radio single "Invasions" and never released the video for today's song, "Many Funerals." Eisely can be added to the list of Christian-adjacent bands that were failed by major labels. Some of these groups saw initial success, whether radio, video, or touring, but ultimately they were left abandoned by the major label. Although RadioU plays some of their latest singles, by the end the Room Noises cycle, Eisley's creative path didn't have them marketed to the Christian rock format, which is what happened to groups like Mae, Copeland, and The Juliana Theory.

YOUNG AND AGILE, SEASIDE BORN. The eerie, somewhat passé lyrics of "Many Funerals" make the listener imagine a dark sea-side setting, that perhaps is set in the past. The lyrical content is fictional. The Dupree parents are still alive (and active on Instagram), and the Dupree children were born in a landlocked county in Northeast Texas. There's not much information online about Eisley's comments on the song, so listeners are left to guess what it's about. The listener, the person the song seems to be addressing, seems also to have died by suicide. Sherri sings, "How could you have left us here? You had your friends, you had us, goodbye." It could also be blaming the person for a sickness or accident that person had no control over, which sometimes happens when someone dies. No matter the cause of death, "Many Funerals" is a gloomy album opener. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross's On Death and Dying categorizes stages of grief humans had been unconsciously practicing for millennia. Art--be it literature, painting, song, or dramatization--helps us as a species reconcile with our own mortality. We can see others in their grieving processes. However, we cannot weigh the grief of individuals in the past, when death was much more prevalent, nor can we weigh the grief of others in the present, in a time when statistically we are living longer, despite the cancers, heart disease, car accidents, and gun violence. One funeral is one too many. Eventually one day, the funeral will be yours if it's not mine first. 

I'M CONTENT TO LIE PEACEFULLY. As music takes on a meaning beyond its original intent, I will again hijack this song to use it as my own soapbox in order to address the senseless killing at a night club in Colorado Springs. I first saw that there was another shooting when I was on Instagram. Then I saw it on the news. It turned out it was an LGBTQ+ club. It turns out it was in Colorado Springs, Colorado, which so happens to be the home of moral majority bulwark Focus on the Family. It's the state where gun-loving, homophobic far-right candidate Lauren Boebert barely clinched a second term. Boebert other anti-LGBTQ+ politicians and public figures have offered condolences online, but it's easy to question their sincerity when Boebert and company have spent their entire career attacking LGBTQ+ people and organizations and bolstering gun rights. Since I wrote about Westboro Baptist Church on Sunday, I wanted to understand the group through a firsthand experience so I found a podcast, an interview with the current pastor, Timothy Phelps, son of founder Fred Phelps, Sr., on the Pastor with No Answers Podcast. I thought that host Joey Svendsen balanced the interview well by allowing Phelps to talk about his beliefs and pushing back on them in a respectful way. That being said, I don't necessarily recommend listening to this interview, particularly if you struggle with issues of depression especially regarding your sexuality or if you have past religious trauma. What I took away from listening to the interview was that due to the church's strong belief in Calvinist pre-destination and their view that only the most faithful to the letter of God's law (as understood by Westboro Baptist Church's teachings) will be saved. Everyone else is awaiting to be burned for eternity, and somehow "the kindling wood," bundles of sticks, or faggots,  is what God hates the most. And while Boebert and other right-wing groups may not belong to Westboro Baptist Church, they all belong to churches that think very similar things about gay people--that they are doomed to burn for eternity. But until then, what's the far right's solution? Restrict rights? Conversion camps? Mock and insult publicly? Propose solutions like building a wall and trapping all the gays in to not be able to reproduce? Influence a political genocide? Or preach and brainwash until you get a suicide? Nope the fundamentalism secretly and not so secretly wishes us all dead. And I'm sick of questioning my right to exist.

Read the lyrics on Genius.