This week’s Song of the Week was recommended by MIA reader Ailsa:
“The media portrayal of Ween as a “joke band” has always been (predictably) infuriating to hardcore fans like me, but if you want to get a sense of how big a lie it really is, you need to listen to their 2003 album Quebec. Singer Aaron Freeman wrote most of the songs while going through a divorce, at the same time as trying to manage a serious addiction under punitive drug policies without adequate support – this final track is a very vulnerable snapshot of the inevitable breaking point. For me, this type of crisis was the result of living 30+ years as an autistic person with no awareness of my disability, the toll that life was taking on me being made invisible even to myself, being offered nothing but pills and CBT and believing the answer was to work harder. It’s the point of critical burnout after your needs have gone unmet and unseen for years, when the pin is pulled out of your life, and with no resources left, all you can do is watch everything burn to the ground. “The wheels fell off, the bottom dropped out.” A devastating ending to a deeply honest and beautiful album.”
-Ailsa
