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Sing a Song for Us Tonight is a segment where people choose a song that is special to them and explain why. Today’s guest is Perseus Q. He’s chosen Sonic Youth and their song The Diamond Sea. Here’s his story

If The Stooges and The Velvet Underground are the grand-daddies of grunge (and punk, and new wave, and a whole heap of other hard rock sub genres) then Sonic Youth is grunge’s daddy.

Formed in 1981 by four arty geeks with very loud amplifiers and a penchant for alternate tuning and Beat poetry, they are one of the rare bands in rock history that managed to create a new ’sound’. It developed over the course of the 80’s, and with the release of their legendary double-album ‘Daydream Nation’ in 1988 they achieved not just fame, but ‘daddy’ status of a movement that would dominate the airwaves in the early 90’s - grunge.

Sonic Youth, and to a large extent, Pixies, were underground legends and hundreds and thousands of disaffected rock-kids worshipped them. One of those kids was Kurt Cobain, and by trying to emulate the sounds of these bands he grew the audience from hundreds of thousands to millions and millions. It was Thurstan Moore from Sonic Youth who first discovered Nirvana - he saw them play in a small venue and remarked that they would be
the biggest band in the world.

There were others who rode the crest of that wave; Pearl Jam and The Smashing Pumpkins for instance, but in 1994, Kurt Cobain did what history expected of him and died. Laying on the floor in a pool of blood was not just the corpse of grunge’s pinup boy, but grunge itself. Or so the pundits claim(ed). Pearl Jam duly got stuck up their own arses, The Smashing Pumpkins turned pop, Pixies imploded and every other two-bit grunge band signed to major labels on multi-million dollar deals started to sound like parodies of grunge as opposed to grunge itself.

Except Sonic Youth.

In 1995, a year after Cobain’s death, they released one of the most awesome records in rock history, the blandly titled ‘Washing Machine’, the flagship of which was the song ‘The Diamond Sea’, a 20 minute epic consisting of four balladic verse-choruses, three minutes of sublime two-chord grunge thatpermeates every sense (including the abstract ones) and about 13 minutes of what can only be described as ‘noise’.

“Grunge is dead,” the world was saying, and Sonic Youth were replying, “Er, we started it, so only we say when it’s finished. And it’s not. And by the way, this is how it’s done…”

At 20 minutes, it’s as much a classical piece as it is a rock song. It has adagios, crescendos, pianissimos, sforzandos… it has ‘movements’ and tells a yarn as all good pieces of art should.

The lyrics are an afterthought (though there’s some half-decent Beat poetry going on); the joy is in the ’sound’ which is, by most rock definitions, indefinable.

I urge you not to look it up on You Tube because there’s only some badly-recorded live versions, and they only display portions of the song. The idea is to actually buy the album, listen to it, and enjoy the ride until you get to The Diamond Sea (last track on the album). There are other rules too: Play it LOUD, play it ALONE. In a car works, doing the dishes works, sitting around looking out the window works. Let the movements wash over you and make of the song what you will. It’s one of it’s strengths as a song - you can make it your own.

I was in a long relationship with an alcoholic. I had to commute more than an hour to get home from work every day. I could generally tell by phoning her before leaving work whether it was going to be a good night or a bad one. I had to get counselling as a ‘partner’ of someone so messed up and the counsellor urged me to create patterns, routines, to protect myself from the onslaught. This involved ’safe places’, certain actions and words and all the usual stuff counsellors suggest. I knew, driving, when I was at the 20 minute mark from home. On the bad nights, at that moment, I would put The Diamond Sea on my car stereo and play it louder than Hell sounds. I’d let the track charge me up. It fed me strength, somehow. Every twisted feedback howl, every bass thump, every bell, every echo somehow injected me with fortitude, dignity and wisdom. I would pull up in the driveway as the last gentle wave caressed the shore on The Diamond Sea.

I’d take three deep breaths and go inside. (Persey Q)

If you’ve got a story about a song you’d like to share, even if you’ve done one before, please email me, thanks