Hopeless Hope: Alex G's Devastating Portrait of the Fentanyl Crisis
Alex G (Sandy) is a true throwback. All grit and nose to the music grindstone, he keeps churning out songs and albums, year after year. Flying under the radar makes no difference to this guy; he is of the 70’s singer/songwriter model by way of the 90’s. Sonically Alex G is cousin to, as often noted, Elliott Smith, what with his minor key embrace and slightly off-kilter voice in an indie-rock vein. However, there is something a bit less morose about Alex G’s work. His work evokes 90’s-nostalgia, more specifically–and most of his songs actually sound almost eerily from the 90’s. If I was a skateboarder with blue hair in 1993, Alex G would be my guy. In addition, many of his songs specifically look back, making sense of what Alex G experienced in almost an earnest, diary-entry manner despite the just-went-Dumpster-diving aesthetics.
My favorite Alex G album is Race, one of his lo-fi Bandcamp albums. It’s just one of those albums where every song seems to fit right next to the other one–and with titles such as “Gnaw,” “Trash” and “Go Away” (and featuring a collection of guys in hoodies walking around on a berm on the cover) the album feels appropriately raggedy around the edges. Alex G’s biggest hit prior to last year’s “Runner,” however, was “Hope,” a song appearing on an album entitled House of Sugar, featuring on the album cover a sparkly female figure skater throwing her head back after what looks like a completion of her Olympic routine. The image is so idealized it is, of course, ironic.
But “Hope” is about death by Fentanyl. We would never know it unless we listened closely. The song is almost jaunty and tightly wound, not a second wasted. Like an early Beatles song it is over before you know it. Then you listen again and you hear the devastation in every line.
“Hope” too plays on irony, as the title indicates. Of course, there is little hope in “Hope”--only factual/journalistic tragedy and regret. “Hope” is a reflection of America where we have suffered nearly a million deaths from drug overdose since 2000. This song reports the dreary news: the singer’s friend died–we know this from the opening line. The tone of the song is, despite the chipper chord progressions, all low-expectations. “Hope” is fatalistic to the core–here we go again. Still. “Got to honor him somehow.” Even if this is a story told a thousand times before, Alex G knows it is important to do it again in his way. This is no mere “The Needle and the Damage Done” part deux—although sadly it plays on the same idea.
The intense middle passage of “Hope” presents a vivid depiction of a man quickly succumbing to the poison in his system. “Can you get me something to eat? Got a hole in my chest.” He just wants a pillow where he can rest his head to die. They tried to save him–”calling out his name…taking turns on the bed.” But he is already gone. Yet to me the song’s power derives from its last utterance: “You can write a check in my name now, Eddie. Take the money and run.” At first I thought this was the living speaker regretfully saying in retrospect there is no amount of money he wouldn’t give to bring him back. “Take the money”--just don’t do this again. As if he could still turn the clock back.
But I think this is incorrect. To me these final lines are from the dead man: take my money, illegally, he is suggesting. It is worth nothing to me now. I am dead–my bank account is worthless to me now. Empty it, run—get out of Hope Street entirely, he warns. This gift is moving but it also paints a picture of a community’s collective soured ethics–drained of any notion of right and wrong. The song ends on a dreary note of complete erosion. The big payout could even be a kind of curse. Eddie (the speaker of this song, it seems) could just as easily buy a bunch of Fentanyl himself with the payout and end up in the same position. May you get what you wish for, as the gypsy curse goes. But why do we wish for this in the first place? “Hope” asks many pointed questions. It provides scant answers.