{"id":122,"date":"2019-12-14T21:24:04","date_gmt":"2019-12-14T21:24:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.richbradley.org\/songs\/?p=122"},"modified":"2020-04-25T18:14:45","modified_gmt":"2020-04-25T18:14:45","slug":"ballad-of-the-costa-concordia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.richbradley.org\/songs\/201x-favorites\/ballad-of-the-costa-concordia\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Ballad of the Costa Concordia\u201d \u2013 Car Seat Headrest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-vimeo wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Ballad of Costa Concordia\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/181370695?h=61b4e3a700&amp;dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"780\" height=\"439\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Francesco Schettino was at the helm of the cruise ship Costa Concordia when it struck a rock off the coast of Tuscany in 2012. He abandoned ship \u2013 he claimed he accidentally fell into a lifeboat, oops! \u2013 and then he hid in a hotel while a massive rescue operation took place. 32 people died, plus another during the subsequent salvage operation. Schettino became a global symbol of cowardice, and was&nbsp;ultimately sentenced to 16 years in prison for manslaughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe Ballad of the Costa Concordia\u201d is not about Francesco Schettino. It\u2019s about what drives a person, or maybe everyone, to the point of rejecting basic ethical behavior and personal responsibility.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As with much of singer\/songwriter Will Toledo\u2019s work, the first section of the song is an indictment of his own depressed brain. He wishes he could feel motivating anger instead of numb defeat. He stays up late \u201cout of some general protest\u201d against no one, and refuses to get up in the morning. He inverts the chorus of Dido\u2019s \u201cWhite Flag\u201d to swap proud defiance for self-pity: \u201cI won\u2019t go down with the ship\u2026 I have lost, and always will be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The song then swirls into a delightfully petulant rant: \u201cHow was I supposed to know how to ride a bike without hurting myself?\u201d \u201cHow was I supposed to know how to hold a job?\u201d \u201cHow was I supposed to know how to steer this ship?\u201d Continuing to pick up tempo into the song\u2019s seventh minute, a new refrain is introduced: \u201cI give up!\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That becomes the recurring chorus through the rest of the track, as Toledo expands his focus from his own life to his entire broken generation and the society that broke it: \u201cWe got mad and we split the scene \/ Now we download all of our shit for free \/ It\u2019s the new economy: we have nothing to offer, and we sleep on trash.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Unfortunate name aside, Car Seat Headrest is the best indie rock act to emerge in the 2010s. At first listen it\u2019s easy to dismiss them as a \u201890s throwback, with their lo-fi Pavement aesthetic and a singer who sounds a lot like early Beck. But the longer you sit with Toledo\u2019s lyrics and dig into his absurdly extensive catalogue (CSH has released nine albums of original material, two albums of re-recorded old stuff after signing to Matador, a live record and two EPs, all in this decade), the more you realize this guy\u2019s not aping anybody. If you need a historical comparison, a better one might be Pete Townshend: a prodigious aptitude for writing three-minute rock songs competing with a head so overflowing with ideas that the format has to expand to contain it all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Francesco Schettino was at the helm of the cruise ship Costa Concordia when it struck a rock off the coast of Tuscany in 2012. He abandoned ship \u2013 he claimed he accidentally fell into a lifeboat, oops! \u2013 and then he hid in a hotel while a massive rescue operation took place. 32 people died,&hellip; <\/p>\n<div class=\"readmore-wrapper\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.richbradley.org\/songs\/201x-favorites\/ballad-of-the-costa-concordia\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[19],"class_list":["post-122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-201x-favorites","tag-car-seat-headrest"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Ballad of the Costa Concordia - Car Seat Headrest | Rich Bradley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"&quot;The Ballad of the Costa Concordia&quot; is about what drives a person to the point of rejecting basic ethical behavior and personal responsibility.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.richbradley.org\/songs\/201x-favorites\/ballad-of-the-costa-concordia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Ballad of the Costa Concordia - 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