The Good Fight
The Flaming Lips' legendary liveshows —ridiculous explosions of fake blood, confetti, and puppetry— came into being after the band decided the material on their 'breakthrough' 1999 LP was too bleak to be performed at face value. Peddling a set of songs about death, the Oklahoma oddballs began their stage antics as an outward, over-the-top celebration of not-death; a joyous affirmation of living in spite of the inevitability of dying.
Such an idea soon grew to define the band itself. Especially when they set to work on The Soft Bulletin's successor, 2002's Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. With the aging/health concerns of the band-members' parents already on their collective minds in the LP's lead-up, the Flaming Lips were shocked when a young, vibrant Japanese friend of theirs died suddenly.
In the manic mind of Lips leader Wayne Coyne, this quickly lead to a loose concept album; a crackpot cartoon in which their friend was re-cast as a super-hero-esque Yoshimi (named after their friend, and album contributor, Yoshimi P-We of the awesome Bordeoms), battling an evil race of Pink Robots who were the symbolic manifestation of disease.
In another band's hands, Yoshimi (with her "black-belt in karate") would fight off the attackers and triumph heroically; rewriting reality in a feelgood fantasy. In the Flaming Lips' eyes, her death becomes a fait accompli, a symbol of the certainty of mortality. Here, their heroine fights not for her life, but for transfiguration; fights for the joy of being alive in the face of imminent death.
Old Time is Still A-Flying
All these thoughts are most obviously —most magically— captured on "Do You Realize??," an already-classic ballad that takes the Flaming Lips' woozy, gloopy, candy-colored psychedelic pop into regal realms. Amidst swelling strings and squalling synths and banging gongs and synthesized choirs, Coyne keeps up that reach-for-the-sky vibe; caroling a hymnal to the human spirit that stands in awe of the fact that the Earth is hurtling through space.
It turns out to be another song about the grim specter ("Do you realize," Coyne sings, "that everyone you know someday will die?"), but it's also a heartfelt plea to make hay whilst the sun shines; to live deep and suck the marrow out of life; and to tell those you love how you feel whilst you have the chance.
In the 'narrative' of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, it's the moment where our heroine heroically succumbs; the stirring, tear-shedding climax that crests before a sombre, odd ending. In reality, Coyne wrote it with the death of his own father imminent; adding more poignancy to a song that barely needs it.
"Do You Realize??" marked the moment when the Lips were at the peak of their powers; the three-and-a-half-minutes in which their celebratory spirit seemed at its most contagious. A song that reminds you, every chorus, that you too will one day cease breathing seems hardly likely to be a feelgood ode to human existence, but, thankfully, that's the way Wayne Coyne sees the world. Hurtling through space, sure. But, also, populated by scared and lonely souls, aching for all the love they can experience before their ride is over.
Record Label: Warner Bros.
Release Date: July 16, 2002
