Monday Melodies: Jimmy Eat World – “Futures” (2004)

There are certain feelings I have when I know that my birthday is coming up. With every July 8, I find myself managing to look forward and backward at the same time, taking into account everything that I have accomplished and still want to do. Some years are more optimistic than others, but it’s always a sentimental mood that I can’t shake. I see every year as a chapter, needing to be preserved with all of these life lessons that make me grow as a person. 

Because of this, I chose to look at Jimmy Eat World’s “Futures” in some ways as a gimmick. What am I thinking about now besides where I want to wind up by next year? The joke isn’t funny, but it gives me an opportunity to finally visit a record that escaped me as a teenager. This isn’t necessarily because I lacked access to it, but more that I just didn’t have that interest. My brain wasn’t built to appreciate the “nuance” of slow rock. I needed it frothing at the mouth, full of this blatant passion that I could understand without thinking too hard about it. I was 15, what did you expect?

Though despite not listening to this album, I still have this surreal nostalgia for “Futures.” I recognize its singles, “Work” and “Pain” especially, and actually can recall this deeper fondness that I didn’t know I had. Maybe it came from hearing these songs on KROQ every day or watching them play on internet feeds of various concerts. Even if I never picked up the album, I was still well aware of what this era sounded like. After all, I did see them on Green Day’s American Idiot Tour where they opened for one of their final shows at The Home Depot Center.

I wish I could pull any memory from that because that was the last time I really paid attention to them. I remember them being good, but I understood then why I struggle at arena shows. The musicians were a speck from where I sat, so at most I was enjoying video feeds playing over their heads. They were good, but I more remember running into my friends in Jack Anthony after the show than anything else.

Neato!

This may be sacrilegious to say, but most of my appreciation of Jimmy Eat World began and ended with their self-titled 2001 album. Before this week, it was their only album I listened to, and I remember it being one of those records I turned to during my first trip through Europe, finding something in “A Praise Chorus” that to this day keeps me sane. They were never a bad band by my estimation, but I just never got around to another record.

Which makes “Futures” an interesting discovery, because I am confident that I wouldn’t appreciate it at 15. Maybe I would’ve at 25, but at 30 it suddenly begins to make the most sense. I’m not only taking in the lyrics, but I’m also noticing how the rhythmic passages throughout “Polaris” are reminiscent of The Cure’s “Disintegration.” I am taken in by the harmonies and the atmosphere blaring through my headphones. The whole world feels more alive, more meaningful when I listen to it fresh right now, meditating on life.

Singer and guitarist Jim Adkins begins the whole album with “I, I always believed in futures.” From here on out, there is a sense of optimism (“I hope for better in November”), reflecting on this personal breakthrough from a different way of thinking. What came before was negative, and what follows is a reinvention that will hopefully make Adkins a better person. As the guitars jubilantly strike through the amplifiers, it’s like confetti flying.  There is a warmth in his voice as if he’s matured and knows to calmly and collectively look at what has passed him by.

The one thing that can be said about the record right off the bat is that it’s less rooted in the pop sensibility that defined “Jimmy Eat World.” What we have here is a darker sound, willing to go beyond songs that wouldn’t be out of place on the Van Wilder (2002) soundtrack and into something that will overwhelm your emotions, causing you to think back on everything you did throughout your life. 

I think of Adkins releasing this song at 29 and finding something familiar in this sentiment. Whereas most birthdays were my own reflection of the past year, reaching a new decade of life brings with it a criticism of who I have been for that entire 10-year span. I actually began feeling it at 28 and eagerly tried to exorcise myself of those demons. I needed to turn 30 without those regrets over my conscience, and I imagine that Adkins, who has lived a more eventful life than I surely, is doing the same.

That, and he’s coming off of “Jimmy Eat World,” the record that made the band into a mainstream success, selling over a million copies and giving them their biggest hit to date with “The Middle.” It’s a great record and one that makes me jealous that Adkins was ever more in tune with his emotions than I was. Still, it explains why he feels free to roam through this album with an honesty that goes beyond songs clearly designed like the emotional college dorm roommate. If anything, this is one full of regret and life lessons.

The most noteworthy stretch of this album is for the songs "Pain" and “Drugs or Me.” Together they are complementary reflections of addiction. The first is more directly in line with their pop sound, finding guitars racing through like an injection through veins as Adkins does everything to stay calm. As the drums kick in, the pulse of the song changes until it screams out in the chorus “It takes my pain away!” It’s a wonderful cry as if everything will be better, but as the song goes back to the verse, there’s a clarity that this isn’t the case. It’s a repetitive structure and one that he will keep having to fall back on. It takes the pain away, but only for a moment.

“Drugs or Me” is maybe more abstract, but is easily the more interesting song. It’s the recognition of guilt, that addiction consumes him and he must do something about it. He’s crying out to somebody, and all we can do is try to hear him out:

Keep my heart somewhere drugs don't go

Where the sunshine slows

Always keep me close

Considering that he can’t tell the world apart, you recognize his sorrow as something genuine. There have been hundreds of songs about addiction, but this is one of the few that feels more internal, reflecting emotional despair that goes beyond refusal or desperation. The drugs cause everything to blur together, and frankly, the stranger next to him is probably just a reflection of his external self. It’s self-revelation at its best, and is the calm following the whittling madness of “Pain.”

This record is masterful and one that feels designed to echo off of the walls, overwhelming every sense until you feel it in your soul. For me, it’s clearest on the single “Work,” where the band is at their most playful, mixing in twinkling guitar melodies that feature a melody that builds to a chorus of pure, confrontational energy. What puts it over the top as a masterpiece is how the song incorporates backing vocals by the great Liz Phair, making it all harmonize and find unity in what he’s saying.

In the music video, a group of teenagers are seen looking back on their lives and desiring to get out of high school. It’s an image that we all have, especially those who are done with the educational system. From this context, the song’s nostalgia is bittersweet, and not just because Adkins is 29 and entering a new era of his life as well. This song isn’t distinctly about high school, but the feeling of escaping conventions “while we still have time” is something that we all want, this eternal youth that we all chase, and Adkins seems obsessed about throughout the course of this record. 

Frankly, “Work” is about as perfect of a song as Jimmy Eat World ever recorded. Its mix of harmonies, loudness and softness, and chord shifts all have this hypnotic factor that shows their range over the course of four minutes is impeccable. They capture emotion once again at a crossroads, eager to jump into that future with youth forever on your side.

There are points throughout the final stretch that have convinced me that Jimmy Eat World are one of the few bands who are capable of ripping off The Cure without it being contrived. The opening of “Polaris” is especially true, as it manages to create this atmosphere, slowly building to a bigger point. It’s like a wave, carrying us away from any distraction and into the deep meditation inside. It’s where we are weightless, eager to understand something deeper about ourselves. “Polaris” is one of those songs that begins to see the shift from youth and mistakes to something greater. It’s one trying to mend a failing relationship, caused largely by his years of touring. You understand his desperation, eager for things to fix.

By the closer “23,” it’s a song about trying to move forward. There is an eagerness to not be trapped in a moment, one that has made you think lesser of yourself. 

You'll sit alone forever if you wait for the right time

What are you hoping for?

I'm here and now I'm ready

Holding on tight

Don't give away the end

The one thing that stays mine

There is optimism by the end, and it’s all that you can hope for in life. Adkins has found a way to escape his pain and live a productive life. Thankfully in the process, he produced one of the most astounding albums I’ve heard recently, managing to have this sonic hold over the listener as he takes you through every piece of heartache and pain, but through a lens that sees it in a more mature light. Not only that, but the sound is fuller, making you able to relax into its deeper message, finding hope and warmth inside of even its saddest songs.

I’ll admit that I never got whatever my dumb metaphor was out of this album. I didn’t get a goofy record about learning how to grow as a person. Though what I did get was a revelation, able to tap into emotions deep inside that I wouldn’t recognize until I had lived. There’s no way I’d listen to this at 15 and get it. Sure, I loved “Jimmy Eat World” as a 12-year-old, but could I honestly appreciate “Nothingwrong”? I’d probably be checked out by that time.

Much like “Futures,” I am now curious to know what the road ahead looks like. Will I be more willing to put on Jimmy Eat World’s newer material and notice different sides of myself? That is the magic of music, able to be interpreted in many ways as you grow older, its quality shifting with your ear. If I loved the record on first listen this much, who’s to say that I won’t love it more when I can sit there, noticing the background instrumentation and understand an even deeper symbolism? 

All I will say to that is don’t give away the end, the one thing that stays mine.