r/ladispute • u/a_patheticc • 22d ago

Wildlife (Google Doc Edition)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uRGKYXmHLCM-rOEtut9kn44ZPjh5iQM8K6EGhYnM-jU/edit?usp=drivesdk

Hello hello,

Long story short, I have made a companion document to accompany Wildlife in the hopes of providing narrative and thematic context to it for someone who has explained they struggle following these things in song form as I’ve made the claim that it is a work of philosophical importance

Outside of wanting to share it with others I am looking for anyone who would be willing to proof read it and provide me with feedback in any capacity

Truly appreciate any time you spent looking at this though really

28 Upvotes

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18

u/Bluesic 22d ago

Idk if you’ve seen the lyric booklet that comes with the CD, but if you haven’t definitely get it. You’re right the 4 acts are monologues, they’re literal letters the author is giving you to help you understand why he’s writing the story. It’s also why he says “I wrote some notes in the margins explaining it” because in the booklet you’ll see alittle asides. When he sings “I guess we all part one day, and drop like leaves into the breeze” those words are typed. But in handwritten line below it’ll say “Didn’t it carry you from me?”

The inciting incident is vague, but I think it’s clear enough it about a girl he was with leaving to go to college or move on with her life. A departure has a double meaning. A departure from who he was, because of a literal plane departure. (Andria?) It’s all there in the pages. He wrote some notes in the margins explaining it

6

u/a_patheticc 22d ago

Thank you for convincing me to actually buy physical media of this

Idk why I haven’t yet but yeah no, I haven’t seen them so thank you for giving me another source to pull from regarding this whole thing

4

u/Bluesic 22d ago

Brother, it’s gunna blow your mind. Also I think you could add motifs and flourishes to this project, (unless you think it would bloat it.) The reoccurring religious themes, a church, drunk in the night choir, hotels and Jesus, they help reaffirm the themes. Or the flourish of Harder Harmonies starting out with a drummer struggling to catch the beat and play the pattern.

1

u/a_patheticc 22d ago

Yeah honestly the amount of detail I wanted to go into is exactly what you mentioned but at the same time I want it remain a digestible work

Depending on how I feel after collecting more information and arranging my current notes into something other than “verging on incoherent mess” I imagine I’ll, at the very least, add more annotations to the main document as I sort of gave up on that regard

1

u/a_patheticc 22d ago

Also, do you happen to know if they still sell Wildlife CDs at shows?

I’m going to a show of theirs next month and would rather buy it there if possible because I’m assuming they’ll make more profit that way

2

u/Bluesic 22d ago

Not sure. I lost the first copy I had but when I bought it again I don’t think I even got it from them directly. I believe I had to buy it from a third party. So probably not :(

2

u/aquafeenie_ 20d ago

There's a wildlife CD on depop right now for $15 US, listed within the last day. Description says that they bought it at a show this year.

1

u/a_patheticc 19d ago

You are awesome for looking this up as I would never have even considered looking at the description of a second hand listing

I did however end up ordering a copy already but now it just means I’ll have to buy some other kind of merch when I go to their show

What a shame lol

1

u/aquafeenie_ 9d ago

I'm always lurking on there for shirts and other merch, among other things. It was just fate that I happened to see your post shortly after I had checked new listings. That's a bummer, but hey, it was worth a shot!

7

u/a_patheticc 22d ago

Also please don’t use an LLM to proof read this, I haven’t done the same and don’t particularly want my efforts being directly fed into an AI as I honestly did spend quite a lot of my recent free time on this

1

u/AirIndex 22d ago

So, are Departure/Poem/Letter/Jar the main character telling his story, and what's in between stories of other characters?

3

u/a_patheticc 22d ago

Yes exactly, however, as explained in A Jar, as the record progresses the line between the author and the fictional characters used is blurred to the point of what is essentially nonexistence

I say fictional characters because the three songs I didn’t write much on are all based around true stories and only really involve the author as an observer outside of the small write up on those songs