The minor fall and the major lift *

o que aqui se anda a passar pode muito bem ser a minha própria versão individual - soliloquial - de um hype: um amor intangível até às últimas consequências, dedicação fervorosa (leia-se frenesi obsessivo-compulsivo) a um ser muito digno de ser amado. um amor de idade adulta debruçado sobre o fruto florescente da maturidade:
portanto, uma visão sobre o crescimento desta criança enorme, Peter Pan desiludido de 1,85 m, o rapaz que queria ser primeiro violinista e, como não conseguiu, construiu o sonho de ser uma estrela pop.




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"Wolf: I felt this depression after, [and] that gave me the freedom to just calm down and realize that it's not about being Christina Aguilera or winning MTV awards. That childhood dream disappeared, I suppose, of making a huge communication. Maybe I became slightly disillusioned, but in a really good way that enabled me to realize that the music was the most important thing, and that the rest of it is total bullshit. How many records you sell really does not matter. It's whatever you give.


(...)


Wolf: There's a lot of humor on the first record. I think a lot of people thought I was quite ridiculous when I first came out, especially in England, and it freaked me out because what I was doing was so from my blood, from my guts. Part of being human is having a sense of humor, you know?

I think because I'm 6'4" and have blond hair and I didn't dress like any other kind of a boy, people just immediately thought I was some kind of circus animal. I realized that the next communication of music had to be a lot more sober in order to tell people I actually meant it. I think a lot of people thought I was joking. Not that I totally care what people think, but if it's going to effect the dynamic or intensity of my music, then it was time to be totally serious, to say: "I actually mean this." Whatever I make in the future, I mean it. I think a lot of people thought it was an act of some kind, and that was the opposite of what I wanted.


(...)


Pitchfork: But the risk of being totally serious is that people counter-respond again, and see a Peter Murphy silliness to your seriousness.

Wolf: I'm prepared to take that risk. This is probably a superfluous thing to mention, but I have my own natural hair color right now, and this is the first that I've seen my own natural hair since I was 11 years old. It was quite an important metaphorical thing for me to do, to take off the circus clothes and put on my missionary work clothes and say, "I mean business, this is me, and I'm for real." The next record is already in my bloodstream and it's a love-sunshine-pop-techno album with brass bands and children's choirs. I'm going to be smiling again soon. This is just a phase.

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uma pessoa cai de súbito numa antecipação inesperada de uma concretização de um sonho que não se sonhava ter, e não sabe o que fazer. fica paralizada perante o surgimento de uma figura de uma beleza impossível de circunscrever e envergonha-se pelo excesso de comoção. contém-se, reduz-se ao mínimo possível. depois abandona o lugar e o sonho e a figura cedo demais, arrependida de não ter sido mais chata e ter dito "hey, Patrick, deixa essa gente e vem comigo que eu tenho imensa coisa para te dizer". isto porque too much is not enough e nunca há sentimento excessivo quando há um amor maior, e as pessoas devem saber quando são especiais na vida de alguém. "It's whatever you give", é disso que se trata. de mostrar o que se recebe, dando assim um pouco.




Being bullied, he recognizes, had made him "obnoxiously ambitious. There's that WH Auden poem: if evil is done to you, you do evil to other people - it was a bit like that. I didn't care, I didn't have any manners. There was a fire inside me." Releasing the album brought catharsis, he says. What it didn't bring was success.
He plunged into self-doubt and depression, out of which emerged his second album, Wind in the Wires.

(...)

And as if that wasn't a big enough slice of the happiness pie, *he fell in love* - the experience so joyfully captured on The Magic Position.

Like Wolf's other albums, this one has a fairytale quality, but it's infused with kaleidoscopic colour. "It's like those 1950s musicals," says Wolf, "where your eyes lock for the first time and the brass starts and the bluebirds fly by. That's what love was like for me. I knew it was a transient thing to be feeling, so I wanted to bubble wrap it." His presentiment proved true: the relationship crumbled after a couple of years, just as Wolf was mixing the album. "I actually thought it was going to be impossible to finish the record. But I gave it two months to rest, then I started finding all that love again with my friends and everyday life, and found I could translate the songs into something more universal."

This, he's realized, is key to what he wants to achieve in music. It's not enough to write songs for himself: "Unless you inspire other people, share your burden or your joy with them, what's the point?" Of course, that's another way of saying that he wants to be really famous. But he also has a genuine desire to "document honestly how human beings change - the spectrum of what we have to go through every day". And the best way to do that, he believes, is by putting your own life under the microscope.

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é preciso que se diga que no final de 2005 o Pedro [loose lips sink ships] me pôs a ouvir pela primeira vez o Wind in the wires, e que esse foi o disco que mais cresceu em afecto, foi o mais ouvido e o mais acarinhado de todo o ano de 2006. saturnino é um termo que encaixa bem no Patrick Wolf. ora é igualmente preciso que se diga que o Pedro sabe destas coisas, ele não falha, e não foi por acaso que me levou pela mão à descoberta de "The Libertine", para me fazer doravante pertencer aos lugares vagamente obscuros de magia e mistério para que essa canção abria a porta. confesso que temi o espalhafato colorido do The Magic Position a princípio. aquele cabelo íngneo, aquele caleidoscópio de cores vivas, um circo de bichos inanimados, era demias para mim - the horror, the horror! mas devia ter imaginado que o disco cresceria. num movimento repentino, avolumando-se, depois mergulhando em profundidade. eu vi logo. quando prestei atenção, eu soube: havia mudança ali. amor e perda também, mas alegria, reconciliação coma vida, com o mundo, crescimento. a criança está a crescer.





Patrick Wolf is growing up.

(...)

Of course, it's worth noting that, for all the frolicking glee, Wolf's melancholy hasn't entirely vanished-- it's just that it's no longer quite so cheerless. Granted, for Wolf to have discovered optimism may seem like an ominous transformation to fans content to be swaddled in cryptic early gems like "The Libertine", but the distinctive, ornate qualities of his first two records remain. And what's taken the place of all that narcissistic grief-- a crucial sense of self-awareness and the resolution of some very elementary identity issues-- has allowed him an artistic and lyrical progression that results in refined and concentrated updates like "The Stars", which insightfully links family and nature, or the virtuosic ballad "Augustine", while retaining a spirited, anthemic quality that puts them confidently at home in the same body of work.

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o que podemos esperar do futuro?

"If this third record is to be total ecstasy, expect to be dragged through the darkest corners of the underworld next. It will be a brave departure to just get as black and ugly as possible without any remorse."


eu não sei, mas sou gaja para dizer que o Patrick partilha comigo [e com o David Lynch, certo] um segredo: "I like darkness and confusion and absurdity, but I like to know that there could be a door I can escape into an area of happiness."





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* Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, the crowd, Halellujah