I Appear Missing - Queens of the Stone Age

This is a long one I'm afraid but please try to make it through! So far we've examined songs released as early as 1967 and as recently as earlier this year (2013). But for this post I'm going to break new ground and discuss a song that hasn't even officially been released yet! I Appear Missing will be released as a track on the new Queens of the Stone Age album (.... Like Clockwork) on June 4th. However, the album got leaked and the band decided to officially release a number of the promo vids to the public. The video is only 3 minutes long but you don't have to wait for the album to hear the full 6+ minute version - the live version is already out there!

1. Calling all comas,
prisoner on the loose,
description:
The spitting image of me,
Accept for the heart shaped hole where the hope runs out

2. Shock me awake, tear me apart
Penned like a note in a hospital gown
A prison of sleep, deeper down
The rabbit hole never to be found
Again… 

3. Where are you hiding my love?
Cast off like a stone
Feelings, raw & exposed when I’m outta control
Pieces were stolen from me or dare I say given away
Watching the water give in as I go down the drain
I appear missing now
I go missing, no longer exist
Some day, I hope, I’m someone you’d miss

Shock me awake, tear me apart
Penned like a note in a hospital gown
The deeper I sleep, further down
The rabbit hole never to be found
Its only falling in love because you hit the ground

4. Dancing on wire both ends are on fire
Cut me loose
Nowhere to run, no more room to pretend
Wandering along the road in the summer night
I go missing, no longer exist
One day I hope I'm someone you'd miss
Shock me awake, tear me apart
Penned like a note on a hospital gown
The deeper I sleep, further down
The rabbit hole never to be found

5. Don’t cry—
With my toes on the edge it’s such a lovely view…
Inside—
I never loved anything until I loved you
Confide—
I’m over the edge, what can I do?
Sunshine—
I’ve fallen through…
I appear missing.

First of all it seems obvious to me that Josh was inspired to write this song by his near death experience after surgery complications in 2010. His heart stopped and had to be defibrillated. He was bed bound for 3 months which caused him to rethink much of his world view and personal priorities. He himself has said that the experience influenced much of the material that subsequently evolved into ...Like Clockwork.

Josh's near death experience was a wake-up call for him but shouldn't we be able to cultivate that balance, self-awakening and structure our life's priorities without a traumatic event of that magnitude? Of course we can !

Its known in Zen as Kensho and it means to experience an initial insight and an understanding of your true Buddha nature. The purpose of Zen techniques is to encourage Kensho at all moments, in order to bask in Satori - enlightenment. Two main techniques used in Zen are zazen (literally sitting) and koans (riddles). The moment of clarity when you solve a riddle, or crossword, or puzzle gives you the smallest hint of what Kensho feels like. More to come on zazen, in later posts - because for me, the title of this song is a koan. By the end of this post I hope "I Appear Missing" might mean something more than it did at the start !

1. The first verse reads like the transcript from police radio. In this case, the "coma police" who patrol us all and keep us imprisoned, dumb-downed and asleep. Once you begin to walk the path and have your first wake-up call (Kensho) you become "a prisoner on the loose". The prisoner has not yet escaped but he is on the run and has the potential to enjoy total realization.
Kongo Roshi: "in Zen the idea is to rise from the dead each moment. Most of us in our everyday waking lives are at least half asleep. Each moment of our lives we must wake up, wake up, wake up! This is the Zen idea. This is the Zen goal. Zen is a philosophy of the here and now, not the then and there. This moment contains everything" 
Daubed in his blood, the protagonist in the video has "WAKE UP" written on his shirt . . . 

2. Your first Kensho can be as violent as being shocked awake, and as we have already touched-on in earlier posts it can be a seriously disturbing experience. Your ego will howl and whine - feel torn apart. Worse still - as the Kensho fades - you fall back to sleep and you yearn to return to that moment of ecstatic harmony. When you can't return to that place through force of will you can feel even further away, never to be found, down the rabbit hole. And as soon as anyone mentions a rabbit hole we have to reference Lewis Carroll and his Alice stories, particularly Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. These so-called children's stories are great works of occult literature. Its not my place to rehash what other great scholar's have already analysed but see here for an easy initial trip down the rabbit hole that is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. And here for something much more in depth.

3. The ego is in a real bind now. It yearns to return to the source and be reconnected but it also suspects that satori will be accompanied by a withering to nothing of the ego. It drains away and the "I" that used to be so familiar is now missing - its not there anymore. But the yearning to be "someone you'd miss" it still there - satori has not been found. We'll need many more posts to tackle this thorny issue - but all along the path the ego only "appears" to be "missing". A clue for now will suffice - many schools of buddhism actually frown on those who achieve buddhahood - becoming a boddhisattva is the best outcome until all souls are freed.

The last lines of the 3 minute version of song come in the form of "Its only falling in love because you hit the ground". Yearning, craving (see Between Angels and Insects post ) can only end in pain and tragedy.

4.  Time is now running out, the dance cannot continue forever. I love the lyrics here portraying impending catastrophe and a high-wire balancing act - so true to real life! Then BANG - it happens again: Kensho. It can happen anytime, anywhere - this time on a summer night's wander. But the yearning to be missed by you remains and back down the rabbit hole I go. “Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.” Alice to the White Rabbit

5. And here for me, is the sucker punch - the experience of waking-up is one that fills you full of love and compassion for all things. It makes it even harder to let go. The ego is playing a different role, a more subtle game and one that few people ever even notice. But our protagonist here, in this case takes the metaphorical leap, leaves it all behind and experiences the bliss (the sunshine). Something that Josh explicitly outlines earlier in the album with the refreshingly direct song, titled, "My God is the Sun"- perhaps a post on that another day . . .

But needless to say after all that - I Appear Missing