Mark Oliver Everett is hardly the first guy in the music business to be dealt a bad hand on the personal tragedy front. But take away the countless avoidable deaths and injuries caused by over-indulging in the rock n' roll lifestyle (the overdoses on designer drugs, the choked-on-their-own-vomits, the shot-up-by-their-opposite-coast-rivals) and take away the freak disasters (your whole-band-was-killed-in-a-crash deals, your bassist-got-crushed-under-a-tour-bus-while-he-slept-in-it jobs), basically pare down to just the kinds of untimely suburban misfortunes most people will inevitably experience at least once in a lifetime. You could make a pretty good case that E is the musician most haunted by an excess of ordinary adversity, the setbacks that are unremarkable (if awful) individually and heartbreaking in cumulation.
As a teenager, E discovered his father's corpse at home, an experience worth more than enough trauma by itself, and one that helped foster his bent for biting gallows humor and bitter irony. Then, as a young musician, E was forced to cancel a tour when his mother succumbed to lung cancer—a tour supporting an album that was largely written in reaction to his sister's suicide.
At that point it's either laugh or cry, but E forged a path down the middle, developing the kind of outlook that says, "life is a daisychain of shit, but as long as you don't sweat it you'll be ok." His oeuvre is crammed with songs that stretch in both directions, spilling over with acerbic, world-weary lyrics that are delivered by punchy pop tunes so maniacally cheerful they sound like the soundtrack to a car commercial about beautiful 20-somethings packing a picnic in a convertible and singing with the top down all the way to the beach.
"Rotten World Blues" might have the most distance to travel between words to notes, as its kick-ass riff backs vignettes about two really sad characters. One, a nut who prophecies the end of the world while begging for change, and the other a lady who "needs a little lovin'/Looking for a light with her head in the oven".
"Yeah! Head in the oven!" you scream, pumping your fist. Finally, E gets to the third character, a street-walking lady with a secret. She's already figured out that "This rotten world's gonna chew you up/Swallow you whole and then spit you back out", so she's able to let all the world's crap bounce off her while she walks her ass around the neighborhood. I mean, easier said than done, but if you can't wrap your head around it yet just tune out the words and have yourself a little dance party.
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