Caelyn recommends "Guided by Angels" by Amyl and the Sniffers
I’m not very punk rock. In high school I was an anti-smoking peer advocate to sixth graders. We showed the kids cigarette ads from magazines and reminded them that even though the people in the picture looked like they were having fun smoking, they were actually all going to get wrinkles and cancer and then die. Today, at age 34, I dress in what can be charitably described as Zooey Deschanel business casual. My favorite way to wear a blouse is buttoned all the way up to my chin. And yet for months I’ve been playing this one punk song on repeat, almost every day: as I draw neat black lines of eyeliner on my upper lids in the mornings; as I open my inbox and figure out which emails I can delete; as I shred kale for the next day’s workweek lunch. (As I said: not very punk rock.)
“Wow,” my boyfriend commented one day, as I queued it up again, “you, uh, really like this song.”
The song is “Guided by Angels,” by the Australian band Amyl and the Sniffers, and I first learned of it from him, my boyfriend, who is much more punk rock than I am. He’s too hipster to even remotely enjoy anything about Brooklyn but just hipster enough to be really annoyed about being called a hipster. Plus, he was born in 1980, which gives him a huge advantage; it was in the air for him growing up, not yet choked out by the repetitive offerings of Blink 182 and Dashboard Confessional. He’s my personal underground Pitchfork Magazine, and one day in the summer he put “Guided by Angels” on one of his playlists of tracks assembled from the corners of the Cool Music internet.
Amyl & the Sniffers is fronted by a woman, Amy Taylor, who shout-sings in a crystal-clear timbre that is sharp, furious, and still decidedly feminine in the best riot-grrl way. Her voice is what made me snap to attention on that first listen, but it was the song’s propulsive beat that made me stay and then return and return again. Guided / by angels / but they’re not heavenly / they’re in my body, and they / guide me / heavenly / the angels guide me, heavenly, heavenly. It’s a chant, a mantra, a trance-inducing tune.
The song itself is about pulling energy from an outside force and not knowing if it’s good or bad. Is your muse really evil in disguise? Is it out to help you or destroy you? Even if it was, it’s hard to let go, because when the muse favors you, the power is exhilarating. I’ve written in a fervor late into the night and I’ve spent weeks bored and listless and unable to reach the highs I’ve previously found. Inspiration is a drug. Don’t leave me alone / ‘cause when I can’t find you / I miss you, Amy cries out.
Despite this, “Guided by Angels” is an invocation, not an exorcism. Energy—good energy? Bad energy? It doesn’t matter. The point is to build energy, to build yourself up. When I get in the zone sometimes I write sentences that go on and on and on and on. The rhythm is the thing. I hypnotize myself. Do I hypnotize my reader too? In “Guided by Angels” the listener and the singer certainly are in the fervor together. It’s a ritual more than music. She searches. You search. The song builds, repeats, builds, repeats. And then it ends in a burst, ready to send you on your way: angels / guided / heavenly / fuck!
I’m a writer, but not all the time. More often than not, I need the muse to leave a note and come back later, when I’m not in a meeting. I don’t need to summon it to put on my eyeliner or triage morning replies or make a salad. But the energy that comes with it—the build up—the boost—
I press play. I hit repeat. I’m ready. Carry on—heavenly—energy—fuck!
Caelyn Cobb is a university press editor and writer living in Queens, NY. Her writing has appeared in HAD, X-R-A-Y, Longleaf Review, and elsewhere on the internet. You can read more at www.caelyncobb.com or on Twitter at @caelyncobb.
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