Have a Nice Life is a celebrated name in the circles of underground rock. Founded by Dan Barrett and Tim Macuga in 2000, the band has experimented in a multitude of genres such as post-rock, drone, post-punk, and various kinds of Gothic music.
Have a Nice Life's cult following has been steadily growing since 2008 when their 90 minute album Deathconsciousness was released and slowly started to get attention. Deathconsciousness is composed of 13 unforgivingly dark songs with violently distorted vocals and instruments, some of which are given rather unassuming and mellow song titles that contrast the depressing music they are assigned to (for instance "Waiting for Black Metal Records to come in the Mail").
One title that sticks out because of its explicit wording: "Holy F*****g S***: 40,000"
Judging by the title one could assume the track that accompanies this vulgar title would be loud and angry, but the lyrics are somber and explain what it's like to live in a postmodern world where people are all conscious of how little a human really matters anymore.
The song begins with a simple 8bit synth pattern and soon becomes layered with acoustic guitar and distorted reverberated vocals that sing "Everything you do has been planned out in advance. The dark stars push their own will down on you." The meaning of each line is open to interpretation due to its vague nature, but I understand this to mean that as of this point in time, humans no longer have free will because a higher power, possibly the people controlling society and media, dictates what each person must do. It continues with "And wolves all tear themselves apart better in packs. That's just a function we will have to work on through." I interpret this to mean people separate into predefined groups and there is nothing we can do at this point to get rid of this structure.
Tim's cynicism becomes more tangible as the song continues. "We're machines that eat and breathe and look really cool," he says. "Send me back in time and I'll bring us back in line. Just tell me whose mother I have to kill." Humans are no longer people to the vocalist, just a bunch of parts that work but nothing more. Have a Nice Life says that people essentially don't matter anymore; people are confined to a system that ensures that their image and compliance matter more than their actual existence. Tim and Dan don't know when or how it happened but there is no escaping it now, other than death. This is implied by the number 40,000 in the title, a reference to the number of suicides per year in the United States.
Whether the track's dark sound and lyricism interest you or not, it is still a unique example of postmodernist thinking in music.
Warning: Inappropriate Language
Have A Nice Life - "Holy F*****g S***: 40,000
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