Equus: Arcwelder - It’s a Wonderful Lie (27 March 1993)

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Many, many years ago, I had a dream that I was in a casual relationship with an airhead, good-time girl. This wasn’t anyone I knew, they were quite literally a figure of fantasy conjured up in my dreams. They were friendly, sexy, ditzy and very much the helpless-female. I remember going through the dream feeling that I had the power in the relationship; I liked her and enjoyed being with her, but I knew that it wasn’t love. She was far too flighty to lose my heart to. We had various (innocent) adventures during the course of the dream and what I remember is that, somehow, she had got herself in some sort of trouble with the authorities. Just before I woke up, I remember she was pleading with me to stand by her while she was in trouble. As she showered me with kisses to persuade me, I remember feeling within the dream a mixture of concern for the predicament that she was in, lust in response to the kisses and irritation at the fact that the inevitable break in the relationship was going to have to wait until her situation was sorted out.  I found myself thinking back on that dream the more times I listened to It’s a Wonderful Lie by Arcwelder.

It’s a Wonderful Lie was recorded for the Minnesota band’s third album, Pull. Listening to the record, the dominating theme is one of romantic disintegration. Five of the 13 tracks, including It’s a Wonderful Lie, are about relationships crumbling, while the remainder trade in notions of doubt and lamentations about the masks people wear in relationships and the pretences that are maintained long after a relationship has gone past its use-by date. Only the penultimate track, Finish My Song, admits to any need for love and comfort in the arms of another. 

As the lyrics to It’s a Wonderful Lie make clear - and you’ll need to read them because Scott Macdonald’s vocal is indecipherable for large parts of the song - the protagonist is ready to quit a relationship which seems to be giving them diminishing returns of enjoyment. What’s interesting about this to me, and why I’ve been reminded about my dream of a relationship with a ditz, is that the lyrics play out like a line by line conversation between the dominant and the submissive halves in a relationship at the point where they are both facing up to the end of the relationship. There’s even the possibility that Macdonald represents the ditzy one in this couple, having to justify themself in the face of the other’s perceived superiority, while attempting to fire back a few home truths of their own and trying to leave with their dignity intact.

My belief that this was a relationship founded on physical attraction is because of the line, I admit that it’s lust - frees my mind from thinking.  What I find fascinating about the lyrics is that so many of the lines could be interchangeable in terms of who is saying them. Examples include:

Why do I try fighting against your indifference? - You’ll never be bright enough to understand me, will you?/You’ll never think me worthy of true love, will you?

I always say it’s OK. I was only lying the last time - I can tolerate your foolishness most of the time, but I don’t think I can anymore/Your harshness doesn’t bother me, but I think you’re getting harsher more often.

I always know when to quit, when I’ve overstayed my welcome - I think I need to move on/Maybe, you should move on, I’ll be OK.

I’m not unbreakable, sorry if I gave that impression - I can’t be what you want me to be.

There’s plenty more in a similar vein that’s open for joint interpretation, but the line Time to move on to bigger and better disasters feels like the crux of the song for them both. There’s every possibility that a split will see them both end up in a similar situation with another person in a year’s time. This feels born out in the song’s coda from 3:48 during which Macdonald repeatedly sings A speeding train and as the brittle driving riff that the song was formed around builds to a crescendo at the 4 minute mark, I can see both myself and my ditz - or Macdonald and his alpha - all of us stood, paralysed in the door frame which could lead either to freedom or disaster and us reacting by clasping the other and collapsing to the floor in a welter of frenzied, desperate kisses. Needing to quit, but too dependent on the other to do so.

Staggeringly good stuff and comfortably the best track on the Pull LP.

Lyrics are copyright of Scott Macdonald.

Video courtesy of Marc Davis.