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Final Draft Personal Essay - Nikhila Lampman
Final Draft Personal Essay - Nikhila Lampman
Nikhila Lampman
Mr. Phinney
11 November 2019
When I first heard the name Cage the Elephant, my initial reaction was: “What the hell
kind of a name is that?” The first song of theirs that I ever listened to was “Ain’t No Rest For
The Wicked” (arguably their most popular song). I loved the song, but the name struck me
because where on earth do you get a name like that? Over time I got used to the name, but
eventually, curiosity got the better of me and I had to know where it came from. In the words of
Cage the Elephant’s lead singer Mathew Shultz said in an interview with Spin Magazine: “We
were in Knoxville, Tennessee, hanging outside a club after a show-this is probably in 2006, and
we saw this guy with a shaved head and a long goatee yelling and screaming and talking to
himself. I’m pretty sure he had some mental issues going on. He all of a sudden beelined towards
us. Everyone jumped into our car and shut the doors. But I didn’t make it into the car. I was
stuck outside. I thought for sure the guy was gonna stab me or something, but then he came up to
me and gave me a hug. The whole time he was saying, ‘You have to cage the elephant, you have
to cage the elephant.’ Afterwards, I was like, ‘We gotta name the band that.' The way they chose
their band's name was basically fate, and the way I see it, it was fate that brought me and Cage
I was introduced to Cage the Elephant by my older brother—we have very similar
Dr. Dog, Spoon, and many more amazing artists. Whenever we are both home from school we
spend a lot of time together; we go on drives, listen to music, play video games, and occasionally
bake together when his girlfriend is home with him. My brother and I are pretty close, so
naturally, he and I have very similar tastes in artists. One of my favorite things is to just listen to
music with him and hang out. Cage the Elephant’s music style of music could be described as
1960’s rock music mixed with the vivid sounds of 2000’s studio recordings. There are Stonesy
and Kinksy riffs and classic themes about worried parents, ruckuses, self-doubt and they went to
For some reason when I started listening to Cage the Elephant’s songs, I started on their
newest album and didn't even consider their five previous albums. I won’t lie, their newest album
is amazing, but in my opinion their newest album is very different than their previous music that
it doesn't do them justice. While working out this past summer I got bored of their music so I
decided to listen to their older albums. Cage the Elephant’s first album Cage the Elephant wasn't
particularly to my taste, it was a little too much on the rock side of alternative. Their sophomore
album Melophobia (which ironically means the fear of music) had some good songs on it too,
Then I listened to Tell Me I’m Pretty, and every album I have ever listened to didn't seem
important anymore because in that moment I had never listened to a more perfect album for me.
This album was different than the others because it had more of a melancholy tone than the rest
of their albums, and that resonated with me at the time because I wasn't the happiest when I
listened to it. I had just recently injured myself skiing and was going to be on crutches for two
months, and, let's be honest, being on crutches for two months is bound to make anyone feel a
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little melancholy. To add to this, my siblings were not very kind to me when this happened.
Don't get me wrong, I love my older brother and sister, but being called crip everyday really
pissed me off. I also didn't want to tell them because I didn't want to ruin my “perfect”
relationship with mr brother. In hindsight, I wish I had said something, but I guess it is best not
to lament what is done. Over the summer, I was angry about so many things, like not being able
to do anything all summer, my siblings calling me crip, and many other things, but over time all
that anger melted away to sadness and I ended up just listening to music all day. One song that
stuck out to me on Tell Me I’m Pretty was “How Are You True”.
“How Are You True” is a quiet song that only starts with an acoustic guitar and gradually
adds an electric guitar and drums. Unlike other songs on their album, with this song you can
immediately feel the somber tone to it instead of having to listen to lyrics. The lyrics also stuck
out to me because of how true they were to me. Shultz sings in a sultry voice for the first verse:
“Out of bed to the bathroom where/I take a look at myself and I stop and stare/And I wonder
who is this standing here/And I try to find the will to carry on/Wonder how much longer I can
carry on/'Cause these days they take so long, yes they do”.
This past summer, my days felt endless because all I did was sit on the couch sleeping,
reading, or watching TV. In listening to this song, I realized that I was not alone in this feeling of
ennui. I think at this point in my life I was stuck in somewhat of a personal doldrums. I was stuck
by myself not doing anything, and missing out on many fun summer plans. The next verse Shultz
sings “All your days spend countin' numbers/'Til one day you'll find, (day you'll find)/That life
has passed you by/And in the quiet still of silence try to hide your eyes/Oh no so don't cry, oh
no”, and in listening to that I realized that I didn't want my summer (but also my life) to pass me
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by, so I decided to put myself into something that I really cared about: playing my guitar. Now
instead of just wasting my days away, I played guitar all day, and it made me so happy when I
played it. I don't think anything can compare to have been working really hard on a song for a
few weeks and finally nailing the picking pattern, or when you have the song down, but just
quite haven't figured out how to sing while playing. I learned all different kinds of songs, such as
Blackbird by the Beatles or Upside Down by Jack Johnson, and of course I learned every song
on Tell Me I’m Pretty. It was this in which I found myself again, in a melancholy song about a
Shultz came up with the idea for “How Are You True” when he had an encounter with an
aspiring artist while traveling through an airport. To quote Shultz from an interview with
Entertainment Weekly: “I was coming back from New York to Nashville and there was this
young kid, super flustered, on the [airplane’s] jet bridge. The flight attendant asked him if he was
going to Nashville to get a record deal and he was like, “No, my label is sending me to rehab.”
He was kind of playing into the rock ‘n’ roll persona and I thought, “Oh no…” But I felt drawn
to him; I had this feeling that I was supposed to talk to this kid. Low and behold, we get on the
airplane and he’s sitting right beside me. We started talking and he just kind of tells me his story
— it was pretty heavy. I was really moved. And then it turned out his name was True, which I
couldn’t believe. After, I wondered how he was doing and where he was. I felt like I should write
a story about my own struggles. As a young man [or woman] sometimes you feel like you’re
isolated in your battle. I just wanted him to know that the struggle can be similar.” Matt Shultz
achieved his goal in showing that everyone's struggles can similar. Yes, we all are facing our
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own “demons”, but we all are struggling in some manner. My struggle at the time, was pretty
isolated to me, but this song helped me understand that we all have our own struggles.
Matt Shultz is in an interesting songwriter in that pretty much all of his songs have a
literal and figurative meaning to them, which is pretty impressive from a technical point of view.
He says that when writing songs he wants “An emotion or a desire to provoke an emotional
response. That’s where they sort of started, but the writing happens many different ways. The
direction, really — raw, gritty, and less thought-out — involved way more of an emotional
approach.” He does exactly what he says beautifully throughout Tell Me I’m Pretty, he manages
to make you feel an experience or emotion on every song. However, in songs of Cage the
The one song that I didn't realize was an analogy was“Sweetie Little Jean”. At first it
seems as though it's about a girl who is kidnapped, but the song is actually about how when Matt
and Brad Shultz were kids there best friend was murdered. I don't really have a solid reason as to
why I love Sweetie Jean so much, but it may stem from the fact that it was written as a story as
well as an analogy. Matt shultz said to Billboard Magazine about “Sweetie Little Jean” that
“When someone suffers from really deep depression, sometimes it's like they've been abducted.”
To me, this was the perfect analogy as to what I was going through when I first started listening
to Tell Me I’m Pretty, and is part of the reason why it’s probably one of my favorite albums of all
time. Before I injured my knee, I was riding high: the school year had just ended, I got four
academic awards, and my relationship with my family was amazing. Afterwards everything that
seemed wonderful was now lackluster or downright awful. I hated everything and everyone
around me, granted I didn't tell my siblings I was angry at them, I didn't tell anyone that I now
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found reading book after book boring; I just left myself to be quietly saddened by these facts,
which was self-destructive. It was almost like I had abducted myself. Eventually I found myself
again, while playing my guitar. I don't think that I would be the same person without my guitar
One of the biggest reasons I love this album is because of the name; Tell Me I’m Pretty
is, in my opinion, one of the best titled albums out there. Matt Shultz said to Entertainment
Weekly “It’s about duality. It sounds like a lost New York Dolls title on the surface; very shiny
and glossy. And then there’s also an underbelly, this idea [of] approval that comes from living in
the selfie generation, like, “Tell me I’m the best.” I was recently having a conversation with my
family about whether or not we were more open with our lives than ever or more private. I kind
of argue on the side that we’re more private because we’re constantly curating the way we want
to be perceived. More often than not, little pieces of ourselves find their way into those projected
images but not a lot that really speaks volumes about a person and their identity.”
Perception in our society is everything. In today's day and age many people spend hours
perfecting their social media so that people see only the partial truth of their life; the perfect
half-truth. We don't see the good and bad, just the good; many people try to look pretty and try to
be the best, so that they can be told “You are pretty” or “You are the best”, and that is why
perception is very important. It’s important to remember we are not always seeing the whole
truth, but rather a fragment, and we can’t judge people on these tiny glimpses of their truth.
Self-perception is also very important, because throughout the summer, I caught myself thinking
that I wasn't worth all this money my parents were spending to have my knee fixed. I also only
showed my parents and my siblings a small truth of how upset I was that my summer had been
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ruined. They perceived that I was fine, but that wasn't the truth. It is important to know that even
your perception of yourself is probably not wholly accurate, because most people only see the
bad parts of themselves and not what makes you amazing. This was my initial thought when I
first read how the title of the album came around, and to me this is what made Cage the Elephant
One of Cage the Elephant’s defining characteristics is that they are giving songs (and
album titles) a frantic sense of dread that’s perfect for my own dislocated, paranoid life. Matt
Shultz’s scratchy, wobbly, jumpy voice isn’t pretty by any means, but it happens to be the
perfect instrument for the manic desperation and sardonic defiance of Cage the Elephant.
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