“Psychic Pain” by PUJOL | Music Exam

photo by Jonathon Kingsbury

It's a rule we journalists try to stick to: Rarely start a question with "do."

The reasoning is that interviewees could always say "yes" or "no" and nothing more. Not the case with Daniel Pujol, though. As the songwriter for PUJOL — a "southern gothic rock" band out of Nashville and on Saddle Creek Records — Pujol has a good answer for every question.

So when I ask him about in-between-song banter, whether he recites a similar message each time or whether he invents it on the spot, his answer to a "do" question totals some 450 words, mentions Criss Angel and ends with, "Would it be wrong to say I’m more than a dude?"

This is no surprise as the aforementioned stage banter Pujol says is consistently entertaining and brings the crowd closer, making them more comfortable and more informed about each song to come. For the first time in his Saddle Creek career, Pujol will be speaking to an Omaha audience on Friday at O'Leaver's as PUJOL plays a concert opened by The Seen starting at 9:30 p.m. RSVP here.

Read on for explanation of "Psychic Pain," the demo version that Pujol says captures "this manic sort of hyperbolic need to be able to articulate oneself" better than the studio version released on PUJOL's album UNITED STATES OF BEING. Then learn the song yourself with chords and lyrics transcribed further below.

Hear Nebraska: Why did you pick “Psychic Pain” as the song we would cover?

Daniel Pujol: Because it's off of that last record I did, and I did a Record Store Day seven-inch for that. The A-side was “Reverse Vampire.” The B-side of that was the original version of “Psychic Pain” that I did. It appeared on the B-side of that seven-inch. I like that song, but I also felt that I haven’t got to talk about just that song.

HN: What other versions of the song are there?

DP: There’s a studio version, the last track of UNITED STATES OF BEING. That version of that song came off as slightly more somber than I had anticipated. It’s a different way of looking at that song.

But I feel like the original version of it that my girlfriend played drums on captures a mania. It’s a little more funny, it’s supposed to be funny, one of the gallows humor songs. And you can hear the drive of someone who doesn’t normally play drums, but they’re capable of playing drums. You can hear that in this version of “Psychic Pain,” it equals the desire of the narrator, this manic sort of hyperbolic need to be able to articulate oneself.

HN: Had your girlfriend played on any other of your recordings?

DP: She played on a song on the EP I did called “Tiny Gods,” which is also funny topically and superficially. It’s very dark, but the delivery of it allows you to see that it’s just so bad, and I’m choosing to laugh at this, to celebrate the absurdity of this dilemma.

HN: Tell me about when and where you originally wrote the song.

DP: I wrote it while recording this version. I had this riff, and my girlfriend, she happened to be home from school. We were watching Twin Peaks, so I told her, ‘Think the theme song from Twin Peaks.

She does this simple drum beat. I do the guitar riff over it. At that time, I was really into Bach, into counterpoint. The essence of that day and that setting and that recording captured the sonic arrangement. The recording encapsulates the intent of that arrangement.

HN: Can you remember what albums you might have been listening to at the time?

DP: Oh yeah. There was a guy who plays in my band now. He does a recording project Quichenight. I was listening to his first record almost constantly. I was listening to Miles Davis and I was listening to Louis Armstrong and Bach.

HN: I’ve read that you describe each song as a “tiny little world.” Tell me about the world “Psychic Pain” inhabits.

DP: Talking about Louis Armstrong, there’s a briefcase of cassettes my family had. I got that briefcase during that time growing up, and I would want to go to the Louis planet and be there for awhile. It’s a present and tangible feeling and place. It’s a little world, it creates a little world.

I like trying to do that with recording. I don’t necessarily like the studio intent unless the world is a band cutting the tracks. I’ve done that before and I enjoyed it because that was the intent. I did a live record a few years ago, and I’m pleased with that, as long as you state, "We’re going to the show world."

If you’re creating characters, and for me as a writer, it’s like I’m going to make it clear that it’s not the same person. It’s necessary for there to be a world and a place for these characters to exist, to provide context for what he or she is saying. It’s called Pujol, not Daniel Pujol.

It’s like I’m taking a picture, writing a story, or making a movie. It lets all the songs be for themselves. It’s more fun to to be able to be like, “Who is this person? What’s their life like?”

HN: Could you talk more about the lyrics of the song, where they originated?

DP: I grew up Catholic, and I grew up in the early ‘90s, was a teenager in the 2000s. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, and when I moved to the city, a lot of kids people my age went to therapy, a lot were medicated for anxiety, open about discussing their emotional states, but they used a clinical vocabulary, and it was a vocabulary that was a negative way to describe inability. What if you were just smart?

I didn’t go to therapy I went to confession. I thought about what it must have been like to have that engraved in your brain, to not be able to vocally articulate your dilemma. What I noticed from being an outsider is I was interested in the connotations of this vocabulary.

You’re discussing your ailment. Is it a monolithic ailment? I am riddled with anxiety, and that’s it. What if you had a different word, if you didn’t say anxiety. What if there is something behind that blanket term? What if you can describe the source of this anxiety, as if it’s some monolithic poltergeist.

This character exists in this world where the world’s not providing me with the language to tell you how I feel. They give me a pill, and they don’t want to hear what’s wrong with me. I can only talk about the what of it and not necessarily the why.

The other side of that is that anxiety or depression could be an acute awareness or discontent with one’s situation. There’s nothing wrong with discontent. I believe in the existence of anxiety or depression, but the clinical presentation of it sometimes surpasses its ability to talk about it.

HN: Do you come up with your in-between song banter on stage on the spot, or is it more or less the same every show?

DP: It’s usually sort of the same, but I learn about it more by doing that. I think it changes a little. I know it changes. I never thought about that, you know what I mean.

I like doing the talking because when I moved here to Nashville, I worked in a venue, and I saw show after show. The bands they never acknowledged the audience aside from, five years ago, they’d say, “You can follow us on Myspace.” Every show had a Myspace and merch plug.

If you see that same show again and again, it’s like what’s going on? It’s like watching TV. That can’t suspend my disbelief. It’s just an exchange where you’re doing a commercial for your band. You’re watching, you’re going to buy it. That’s not magic, that’s not rock ’n’ roll.

It might be something I’m incapable of doing. I feel it’s necessary for me to remind myself by engaging the environment that this is just not an exchange. So much of our culture is based on exchange, whether that’s neo-liberal idealism and the way we understand words or whether that’s just the way life is. If you’re making art, if you’re a preacher or politician, you can pull back the schmaltz by maybe trying to highlight the miracle of the fact that of all the places and times in human history, there’s this one spot, whether there’s 20 or 400 people in the room. There is an exchange, but it’s not a hard-handed economic exchange.

Maybe I’m sharing something that you have paid for, and I’m grateful for that. But I’m not going to not talk about the fourth wall. And I’m also not going to do a Criss Angel postmodern skit where I’m highlight the breaking of the fourth wall. Breaking the fourth wall is so fourth wall.

If it’s done appropriately, that light-heartedness, that humor, that engagement, the stage is just as appropriate for that as it is for putting on a show that stops at the end of the stage. If I play something large for a lot of people, I can’t do it. That’s not small enough. I have to be somewhere where I can make eye contact with the crowd. You can try to talk to someone, not in making you nervous by shining the spotlight on them, but it helps make it comfortable.

We started doing house shows in Nashville one of the things, and we did is trying to make the environment as inclusive, aesthetically and socially as possible. You don’t want to exclude or intimidate or insult their intelligence by pretending you’re not there. They know you’re just a dude. Would it be wrong to say I’m more than a dude?

PUJOL – BLACK RABBIT from Stewart Copeland on Vimeo.

HN: Coming from Nashville, a city full of music, how would you describe the similarities and differences between it and Omaha?

DP: I think that what the Saddle Creek guys did with their friends there is similar to here. I’m from here, and I like it here. There’s a distinct feeling, attitude and aesthetic that represents the place I’m from. I want to invest in my community so I can have a place in the world. I think any group of people that’s lucky enough to find that and want to work toward holding on to that is fighting a good fight, especially with the internet, where you could go to Mars if you wanted to.

CHORDS

(Note: chords are simplified.)

Gm – F – A#

                   F
There is a pain
                  Dm
Inside my brain
                      F
That feels a way
                Dm
I can't explain

                       F
With spoken word
             Dm
I never heard
                F
To articulate
                  Dm
But not escape

Gm         F          A#
Psychic pain
Gm         F          A#
Psychic pain
C                            F
Feelings you cannot express
Gm         F          A#
Psychic pain

                           F
Well, what you got
                Dm
Over my head
                F
Is all the words
             Dm
I never read
                 F
I'm like a ball
             Dm
Of energy
                     F
That's everywhere
                  Dm
But never free

Gm         F          A#
Psychic pain
Gm         F          A#
Psychic pain
C                            F
Feelings you cannot express
Gm         F          A#
Psychic pain

There is a pain
Inside my brain
That without words
                          F
I just cannot explain
                   A#
There is a pain
Inside my brain
That's dragging me
Just like a ball
         F
And chain
Bane

Everyone said
                     Dm
That it was lame
                       F
To learn the words
                       Dm
To free your brain
                F
It's not a demon
                Dm
I'm not insane
                F
It's just a feeling
                  Dm
Without a name

Gm         F          A#
Psychic pain
Gm         F          A#
Psychic pain
C                            F
Feelings you cannot express
Gm         F          A#
Psychic pain

F – A# – F

Michael Todd is Hear Nebraska's managing editor. Blinking text cursors are the cause of his psychic pain. Reach Michael at michaeltodd@hearnebraska.org.