Hussalonia Song # 1: I Used to Be Afraid of the Dark

Well, here we are at the beginning of this little odyssey at last, and it feels so wonderful to be here with you on my first (regularly maintained) blog!
I should start, as I did in the introduction, by drawing attention to the fact that the title of this blog is a misnomer. Hussalonia's first four albums, released on cassette in 1997, are not in my possession in either hard copy or digital formats. Having no means of listening to them, and no knowledge even of the track listings on them, I have decided to simply start with the album released the earliest that I do own. That album is "Ernest Evans Hussalonia." For posterity, I would also like to list the four Hussalonia albums that I do not own: the first was "Holden Hussalonia," which may or may not have had some connection to J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher In the Rye," the second was "Don Juan D'Hussalonia," which may or may not have had some connection to romance, the third was "Russophile Hussalonia," which may or may not have had a connection to an appreciation for Russian culture, and the fourth and last of the 1997 releases was "Maryann Hussalonia," which may or may not have had any sort of connection to the character played by Dawn Wells on the 1960s television series "Gilligan's Island" or to the same Maryann who featured in the later Hussalonia album "The Somewhat Surprising Return of the Hussalonia Robot Singers." Once again, I'm just a fan, folks. All you'll get from me here is personal ramblings, speculation, and probably much less insight than what you arrived here with (I might even sap some of yours before you're gone).
According to the album description on Hussalonia's official website, the material on "Ernest Evans Hussalonia" was recorded 2000-2003, and the album itself has a release date of March 4, 2003. Being out of print, it is one of the few for-pay Hussalonia albums that I was only able to get a copy of digitally. That was a bit of a disappointment to me, as I'm the type who collects things obsessively and always prefers a hard copy when at all possible. Such is life.
Drawing again on the information already provided by the website's official description, one will note that the album contains many references to 1950s and 1960s oldies music while not really being very similar to that music at all. I am only vaguely familiar with that type of music, I confess. I have one Buddy Holly box set that I hardly ever listen to. I have no dislike for that music; it just isn't the type that grabs my attention very often for some reason; I might say that I'm simply not in the mood for it very often, for whatever reason. I own no music by Chubby Checker. I'm probably missing a ton of references on this album.
"I Used to Be Afraid of the Dark" is a rather odd song in terms of my introduction to it; as I've already said, it is the earliest Hussalonia release that I possess a copy of (though not the earliest recording; "Charles Hardin Hussalonia" holds that title, if I'm not mistaken) but I didn't listen to it until after I'd heard nearly every other Hussalonia album. This was, as you might expect, due to the fact that I listened to all of the more recent, free material first before I began to purchase the for-pay albums. In other words, I more or less discovered Hussalonia's entire catalogue in reverse order.
The first thing that the song's title reminds me of is the 1990s Nickelodeon creep-show "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" and so it goes that my exposure to American (though I think the show was based in Canada) pop culture already begins to affect my reactions to these songs right from the start, and, of course, in the most irrelevant way possible. You might also note that I have already turned to my strange practice of writing exceedingly long, meandering sentences.
The song itself begins like a late-night, tape-recorded bedroom confession; the vocal is soft and restrained with only acoustic guitar for company. It doesn't take long, however, for the song to reveal this opening as a bit of a ruse. About fifteen second in another sound enters in, and if I may get right to showcasing my complete musical ignorance, I can't place what was used here, though I'm fairly confident it was a synthesizer of some kind. The vocal and guitar don't even make it a full minute into the song before the entire thing becomes more of a sound collage than a song. Sound collages feature fairly frequently in these earlier Hussalonia works (I think that somewhere it is mentioned that the four 1997 Hussalonia releases were full of them) and they are something of an acquired taste, I'll admit. However, I do enjoy them when the mood strikes me a certain way.
The lyrics here, for whatever reason, are not especially memorable to me personally, and I cannot venture a guess as to why – though I remind you that statements such as this are highly subjective and this blog will be full of them, and in this case saying that the lyrics aren't especially memorable to me likely says more about my memory than about the lyrics. The words that close the lyrical portion of the track, however, do stick out in my memory: "I used to be afraid of the dark, insects and death." That statement inspires me to question why on all three counts.
As far as my ability to relate goes, I'm not sure that I was ever afraid of the dark per se. I have an odd memory from my early childhood that to this day I cannot adequately explain, though on the internet I have stumbled across one or two other people with a similar experience, and this memory may relate to a fear of the dark. I recall that as an infant, lying in my crib, on at least one occasion I saw "shadow people" standing over me. I recall their skin being as black as shadow, almost of a kind that could absorb light like a black hole. There were two or three of them. I could see their shapes only vaguely, though I remember with some greater distinction their hands, grasping the railing of the crib. My only response to this was hiding under the covers. It is possible that it was an early nightmare, or a kind of waking dream; perhaps even a form of sleep paralysis or something. It is possible that it was a childish hallucination based on a general fear of the dark. Whatever it was, it felt real to me, and if nothing else it feels real to me when I remember it. I found an article on the website "Retrojunk" some time ago by a guy who described the same sort of experience, and he simply called the figures "phantoms" if I recall correctly.
I have always been rather afraid of, or at least disgusted by insects, including dead ones. Several weeks ago I found a spider crawling on my foot. A year or so ago a centipede crawled over my foot as well. On both occasions I switched to wearing socks in the house for some time afterward, though I don't prefer to do that. The spiders that crawl around the ceiling and don't move much generally don't bother me a great deal. Black spiders, and faster ones, such as one that I found on my bed several weeks ago in yet another traumatic incident, disturb me very much. I despise centipedes; something about them strikes me as some sort of unholy, unnatural, demonic terror. They tend to come out in the spring and show up here and there until late fall. I almost always wear socks in the summer.
I have almost always feared the deaths of loved ones much more than my own. That is another question I would pose to [The Hussalonia Founder] about the statements in this song, if they are in fact autobiographical: namely, was his fear of death of the same sort as mine? I have lost very few loved ones in my life, and frankly I have very few to lose (which makes my losing them all the more terrifying to me). For whatever reason the reality of death struck me at, I believe, about the age of six, and I think that perhaps it caused me more depression then than it does now, though I'm not entirely sure why. The fragility of life has been on my mind very, very often since that early age and I think that perhaps it is one of the things that have shaped my personality and way of thinking most strongly. I have endeavored to enjoy and appreciate life's best aspects as often and as deeply as possible. I try not to take anything for granted, though I do not always succeed. Further down the years I wonder if perhaps the best way of dealing with death anxiety is to simply allow oneself not to think about it much, even if that leads to taking things for granted at times. Is it better to take something for granted that you will someday lose or to try and appreciate it and struggle to do so against a terrible anxiety over the inevitability of losing it? This might be a good time to invite you, dear reader, to leave a comment if you so desire. It is nice when, in times of despair and in thoughts of great gravity and stress, we do not have to feel as alone as we are.
The dog my grandparents have owned since I was in the fourth grade died rather unexpectedly two days ago. It has left me feeling rather glum and strange; it is funny, in a way, how the lack of a dog's presence can leave one feeling totally out-of-whack, like life is missing some key component that makes it what it is or is supposed to be. The last time I lost a dog that was in my family was a good many years ago, and it was a dog that they owned since I was in kindergarten. When she died I listened to "People Are Strange," one of the few songs by The Doors I really liked, and it all but ruined that song for me due to the memory association.
If I were to ask [the Hussalonia Founder] any further questions about these lyrics directly, I might also ask exactly why he no longer fears the things mentioned here (again, assuming that this song is, in fact, an autobiographical one; I realize that not all songs are, though I do tend to think that at least a little bit of ourselves gets implanted into the things that we create). Overcoming fears, in most cases, is usually a positive experience, and if there is any knowledge on this particular subject that I am missing and that may be of help, then I welcome it.
After the vocal section of the song ends, the sound collage really takes over. I think that I am most often reminded of the Beatles when listening to Hussalonia, though on two or three occasions I am reminded of another band entirely: The Flaming Lips. This is one of those occasions. The Flaming Lips, if memory served, started off with more use of sound collage and later focused on traditional song arrangements and the like, and the sound collage section of "I Used to Be Afraid of the Dark" sounds like it wouldn't be out of place on a Flaming Lips album, especially an earlier one. The track takes on a sort of dark, techno kind of sound as it progresses, and it brings to mind a sort of black-and-white 1950s science fiction image. I can imagine it being the soundtrack to a film with lots of old-school flying saucers, ray guns and monsters. It doesn't inspire in me any particular emotional or intellectual reaction, but it is a pleasant listening experience despite what I perceive to be a rather ominous tone.
That, I suppose, concludes my first written reaction to a Hussalonia song. Perhaps if you forgive it the rambling, the imprecision of language, and the occasional boring anecdote, you might find something worthwhile here after all. Keep on the positive side, and keep on truckin', my friends!