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Nikhila Lampman

Mr. Phinney

English 10: Global Voices

11 November 2019

How Are You True?

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

the Elephant together.

I was introduced to Cage the Elephant by my older brother—we have very similar

choices in music and he is always unwittingly introducing me to new bands. He introduced me to

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

the doctor at least once, “’cause something don’t feel right”.

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,

but I wasn't quite vibing with the music.

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

personal experience of Matt Shultz’s.

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

Elephant, it's not always clear where the analogy lies.

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

and my deeper understanding of music.

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

different than previous artists I had listened to.

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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