GutterPutter

In 2022, I did my dissertation to finish off my Bachelor of Arts degree. It is a literary analysis where I would go through three albums through the perspective of Romanticism from the 19th Century to highlight its links with human nature, the natural world, and emotions. For the first two, I picked the Mountain Goats’ 2002 record, All Hail West Texas,  and Okkervil River’s 2005 magnum opus in Black Sheep Boy. By citing the transcendental value of the sublime and the similarities with the Gothic fiction conventions, I point out the ways that the albums’ emphasis on emotion is similar to Romanticism to great effect. It is mind-boggling work for sure, but it is rewarding at least on an intellectual level.

The third and final album that I’ve touched on is one that is more obscure compared to the two, the 2009 project of a Canadian singer-songwriter named Jordaan Mason. The album’s name is Divorce Lawyers I Shaved My Head and it’s a concept album that tackles a couple’s dysfunction and downfall from their gender dysphoria and sexual complications. I went into detail about the queer implications about the Romantic movement, the naturalness of non-heteronormative sexuality, and its relationship with the tracks within the album. It is among one of the more out-there pieces I think I ever wrote; an intersectional dive into identity and gender.

What I would want to focus on however is not so much entirely on what I had previously written on the album from a largely academic perspective. Instead, this post is more like an ode to celebrate what I thought of as one of the most unique, emotive, and heartfelt works of art in representing queerness. To me, Divorce Lawyers I Shaved My Head is one of the greatest ever pieces of music to focus on the lives of those who are a part of the LGBTQ+ community for its frankness and vividity. Described from the Bandcamp page as being about “a failed marriage between two people of confused genders and identities taking place during a glandolinian war in 1990”, the album portrays gender dysphoria at its most painful. Yet, for all its tragedy and lamentations, Mason creates beauty in the attempts made to manoeuvre through the rigid gender roles.

Firstly, Divorce Lawyers is inspired largely by the outsider arts of Henry Darger, a reclusive American custodian whose works portray children going through fantastical journeys. Mason admits in their AMA that they have not read through the works, but does sympathise with the posthumous fame that stems from his passing in 1973. The wide-sweeping epic from the 15,000-page manuscript which describes the fictional Glandolinian War that was led by the seven Vivian sisters was referenced in many of the tracks. ‘The Wrong Parts (Vivian Sisters Singing)’ imagines the voice sharing the same bed as the sisters alongside their spouse as if the childlike innocence is permanently disrupted by their realisation that their identity shifts outside of their sexual organs. Meanwhile, ‘After the Glandolinian War’, based on the literal premise of the album being set in a war, alludes to an apocalyptic ambience that is reminiscent of anti-nuclear films like Threads. It is clearly not a one-to-one adaptation, but it possesses an allure of examining naivete and our complications in understanding sexuality as we grow older. Case in point, the seemingly contrapuntal nature of ‘Bird’s Nest’ which goes into detail the “unnaturalness” of sex between people with detached feelings over their bodies:

Thematically, Divorce Lawyers seeked to highlight gender dysphoric feelings and queer identities through biology and health. The album puts the image of life and death alongside male and female in a binary fashion, applying them to the couple’s dysfunctions in a way that drives home the tragedy of personal dissociation. In ‘Prayer’, Mason plays with their language in a way that is similar to Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy in that they will not “clinic” their partner easily or ponder the ways that she “[puts her] cock in”. The implication being that it would be inconceivable for a self-identified woman to have a penis which poses an existential threat to her very nature. ‘(S)mother’ takes on a symbolic tale of a terminally ill patient reminiscing about their queer identity and their eventual acceptance despite being disowned by their family. This is inspired by a personal story about a friend who suffers from cystic fibrosis which was first found out by an interview from Mutant Radio. The intertwining of sex/gender and life/death carries onward to ‘Organs for Oceans’ which goes into detail the feeling of helplessness in feeling socially pressured into sex regardless of your orientation.

The diptych of ‘Racehorse: Get Married!’ and ‘Wild Dogs: Divorce!’ both tackle the anguish of marriage under the mythologised representation of sex organs. Lines like “the space between your legs” or “failed science experiments” point toward the mystification of sex as being completely alien, incomprehensible beyond our imagination. This kind of imagery demands that we look into gender roles and biological sex categorisation as being not only restrictive, but oppressive. It is the systemic antagonist that persists in denying the couple their agency in expressing themselves.

With my research into Romanticism and its relationship with nature as being the ultimate good, it is interesting to listen to the ways that Jordaan Mason portrays it as being not only supreme, but also unfeeling. ‘Avalanches’, for instance, has Mason and their partner metaphorically picturing their bodies as “avalanches” with the snow being “flesh in gardens” and their mouths “between fire blankets”. ‘Carpenter/Rebuild the Body out of Birds’ takes the semantic comparison a step further, seeing a bittersweet rebuilding of the couple as they accept themselves for who they are. No longer are they partaking in a role as husband or wife exactly, but they are now themselves as symbolised by the birds where their innate search for freedom enables them to defy societal expectations. This comes at the cost however as the couple came to the realisation that they no longer love each other. By finally getting the taste of their true identity, their impending divorce comes to its conclusion and with that goes what remains of their compatibility.

It was through this which helps to emphasise, to a strong emotive level, the tragedy of feeling like an outsider. In the entire process of stressing about gender dysphoria, incompatible sexual orientation, and the innate naturality of our sexual or gender emotions, the struggle around it does not pass as quietly as one would have hoped. Instead, it can stick long even after the highest point of tension passes by, the perpetual anxiety that leaves you a victim of the long-internalised phobia that demands heteronormative alignment. ‘1990 was a Long Year and We are All Out of Hot Water Now’ thus serves as the perfect conclusion to the album where the tension surrounding the couple’s dysphoria remains after their acceptance comes. As Mason sings, “you are a girl with a cock? i am a boy who can’t talk?”, we are called into attention the paradox surrounding gender roles. Even if you were to accept yourself for who you are, how weird or infuriating must it feel that you are left with a body that you did not ask for, to be born into biological conditions that you have no control over?

Therein lies the height of Jordaan Mason’s artistic merit, the highlights surrounding Divorce Lawyers that makes it truly great. It doesn’t fetishize the idea of trans identity as being the ultimate proof of gender roles having been dismantled for the equality of everyone. It didn’t extol those with dysphoric feelings as being utterly free from the confines of traditional expectations. It didn’t treat queer identification as a commerce to be hailed as a market worth tapping into or to represent for everyone to nominally understand. Trans, queer, non-heteronormative identification just exists as an organic part of ourselves even if it gives us considerable pain based on the community we grow up in. This alone makes protecting them all the more important as they do not decide on who they are at birth; they are simply born with it regardless of their body or their neurological development.

In light of controversies surrounding findings like the Cass Report or the growing popularity of far-right political parties in Europe, the LGBTQ+ community is at risk like never before. The legislations that should purportedly protect them suffer from loopholes that make bullying or even prosecution justifiable under the argument that they’re “degenerate”. Meanwhile, movements like trans-exclusionary radical feminists (AKA. TERFs) have sought to undermine trans lives even to the point of espousing traditional expectations for women.  These attempts to delegitimize the lives of many people is not only ethically horrendous, but it has serious implications regarding the future of feminism or sciences that deal with sexes. This needs to be dealt with. Even with genres like queercore or hyperpop, trans or non-binary representation generally feels as if it’s spread far and thin within music. You don’t really hear of someone like Laura Les or Anohni topping the charts while they’re open about how they don’t fit in with our expectations on what makes a pop star.

So, what does that leave Jordaan Mason in the wider context of their work? That their portrayal of the complex feelings, pain, and rationalisation of gender dysphoria helps to humanise the couple in the album to show the endurance of the queer community. While Divorce Lawyers end on the note that their future is uncertain, it is strongly implied that they are finally free from the confines of society. In the aftermath of the Glandolinian war, they emerge as survivors in a whole new world in what one could interpret as a flip on the Adam and Eve story. They have the opportunity to reset the world order in a way that ensures that they and others like them will be safe in the future.

Speaking of the Glandolinian war, what kind of war are we thinking about? A literal conflict or the culture war in the fight for normalising the underrepresented?