Did I Build This Ship to Wreck? Part 1

Source [Image of Oscar the Grouch holding a sign that says “I heart trash.”]

Or, “Why is Florence + the Machine’s How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful the soundtrack to my trash ship?” a guest post by fandom correspondent LM, author of The Lobster Dance, a blog about about geekery, Japan, and gender, and I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog with a lot of fandom cakes and gender analysis of food marketing. Find her work on Comparative Geeks here.

Spoilers for X-Men First Class (major), X-Men Days of Future Past (moderate), NBC Hannibal (mild), and Battlestar Galactica (mild). Contains gifs; discussions of music and films featuring abusive relationships, alcohol abuse, and moderate violence; links to music videos with disturbing imagery of the same nature. I’m sure that Florence Welch actually wrote her music about her experiences and not about fandom, but seriously, have you seen the X-Men prequels? Or NBC Hannibal? Do you see?

There appears to be no one definition of a trash ship*, so my definition is a ‘ship that you know is objectively bad, either because the characters bring out the worst in each other or because one of the characters is literally a cannibal serial killer (or somesuch). Cherik (Charles Xavier/Erik Lensherr)? Trash ship. Starbuck/Apollo? Trash Battlestar. Hannigram (Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham)? Trash spiral-galaxy.

And yet, they’re strangely compelling: in the case of both Cherik and Hannigram, you have two gifted but flawed (some more than others) people drawn together because of outsider statuses and who bounce between love and hate, collaboration and war, admiration and loathing. That kind of relationship is what How Big depicts: it’s a literary, intellectual break-up album about being in relationship where the narrator and the narrator’s partner both hurt and abuse each other–and sometimes kind of like it. These are songs of revenge, angst, lost chances, doomed love, blinding hatred, and obsession.

People who pre-ordered the How Big album received four albums over the course of a few months prior to the full release: “What Kind of Man,” “Ship to Wreck,” “St. Jude,” and “Delilah.” My reaction was basically as follows, because I tend to text like a character from an article in The Toast and also speak fluent Tumblrese:

“What Kind of Man”: THIS IS THE THEME SONG TO X-MEN APOCALYPSE IT IS KNOWN

“Ship to Wreck”: ARE YOU JOKING, FLORENCE? A SHIP? TO WRECK? A SHIP?!

“St. Jude”: THIS IS A CHERIK ALBUM SHE SHIPS IT TOO HELP ME

“Delilah”: WAIT IS THIS ALSO ABOUT WILL GRAHAM FROM HANNIBAL

How Big could easily be the soundtrack to the X-Men trilogy that started with X-Men First Class (First Class, Days of Future Past, and the upcoming Apocalypse). Allow me to illustrate.

“WHAT KIND OF MAN”

Source [Image: X-Men First Class: Erik holding Charles, whom he has just accidentally shot, on the beach in Cuba]

I was on a heavy tip
Tryna cross a canyon with a broken limb
You were on the other side
Like always, wondering what to do with life

Source [Image: Days of Future Past: Charles and Erik play a very tense chess game.]

I already had a sip
So I’d reasoned I was drunk enough to deal with it
You were on the other side
Like always, you could never make your mind

Source. [Image: First Class: Erik and Charles lounging and playing chess at the Lincoln Memorial.]

And with one kiss
You inspired a fire of devotion

That lasted 20 years

Source [gif: Days of Future Past: Erik and Charles staring intensely into each other’s eyes at their first meeting after 10 years. Are they going to kiss? Quicksilver in the background, not sure how to react.]

What kind of man loves like this

Source [gif: immediately after, Charles decks Erik]

See also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7gOJH3P51k

See also: gif version

See also also: a list of Magneto things too long to fathom because ERIK NO

“What Kind of Man” accurately describes Erik and Charles’s troubled relationship, which started out as a friendship (and romance, honestly) based on a shared desire to make the world a better place for mutants. Erik, however, “can never make his mind” up about whether he’s with or against Charles and Charles’s methods. “I’d already had a sip / so I reasoned I was drunk enough to deal with it” refers to Charles’s drinking problem and power-suppressing drug problem, partially caused by Erik leaving and taking Raven away at the end of First Class. However, Charles and Erik, Professor X and Magneto, are bound together by cause, and perhaps by fate, with the “devotion… last[ing] 20 years” referring to the two decades from when they first meet in First Class in 1962 to whatever fate befalls them in Apocalypse, set in the 1980s. They can’t fix each other,  stand each other, or quit each other. What kind of men love like this?

It’s not just this song. It’s all the songs.

—–

“SHIP TO WRECK”

Don’t touch the sleeping pills, they mess with my head,
Dredging the Great White Sharks, swimming in the bed….

And oh my love remind me, what was it that I said?
I can’t help but pull the earth around me, to make my bed
And oh my love remind me, what was it that I did?
Did I drink too much?
Am I losing touch?
Did I build this ship to wreck?

“Ship to Wreck” draws on the same imagery of drinking too much and addiction as well as maritime imagery, but the (fanon) line about the shark really makes it.

“HOW BIG, HOW BLUE, HOW BEAUTIFUL”

This song describes the first time Charles uses Cerebro and the resulting recruitment road trip to find mutants.

Between a crucifix and the Hollywood sign, we decided to get hurt
Now there’s a few things we have to burn
Set our hearts ablaze, and every city was a gift
And every skyline was like a kiss upon the lips
And I was making you a wish
In every skyline

Source [Image of Charles trying on Cerebro, the machine that amplifies his powers to find other mutants, for the first time

Seeing all the mutants in the wide world is a thing of beauty. (Also Cerebro is kind of blue.)
How big, how blue, how beautiful
How big, how blue, how beautiful

But when the daddy mutants leave the baby mutants alone, they get attacked. Note the reference to Azazel’s preferred form of attack: teleporting to high places with people and dropping them, Raven’s powers of transformation, and the satellite (of love):
And meanwhile a man was falling from space
And every day I wore your face
Like an atmosphere around me
The satellite beside me

And back to Cerebro–Hank has opened the door to Charles’s ability to locate new mutants:
What are we gonna do?
We’ve opened the door, now it’s all coming through
Tell me you see it too
We opened our eyes and it’s changing the view
Oh, what are we gonna do?
We opened the door now, it’s all coming through

“THIRD EYE”

“Third Eye” depicts the water rescue scene in which Charles and Erik first meet, as well as the scene in which Charles helps Erik find the “place between rage and serenity.” With the powers of his “third eye” (telepathy) Charles could see Erik in the water and sees the “hole where [Erik’s] heart is”; he becomes the “original lifeline” who rescues Erik’s and also reconnects him to his happy memories, but Erik pulls away. This is perhaps the saddest Cherik song, as it represents the promise of what could have been.

Source [Image: Charles rescuing Erik from the water. “I thought I was alone.” “You’re not alone.”]

Hey, look up!
You don’t have to be a ghost,
Here amongst the living.
You are flesh and blood!
And you deserve to be loved and you deserve what you are given.
And oh, how much!

‘Cause there’s a hole where your heart lies
And I can see it with my third eye.
And oh my touch, it magnifies
You pull away, you don’t know how.

“ST. JUDE”

While “Third Eye” is an anthem to Charles’s trying to convince Erik he has the potential to be good, “St. Jude” describes the aftermath of Erik’s deflecting the bullet into Charles:

Another conversation with no destination
Another battle never won
And each side is a loser
So who cares who fired the gun?

And I’m learning, so I’m leaving
And even though I’m grieving
I’m trying to find the meaning
Let loss reveal it
Let loss reveal it

St. Jude, the patron saint of the lost causes
St. Jude, we were lost before she started
St. Jude, we lay in bed as she whipped around us
St. Jude, maybe I’ve always been more comfortable in chaos

BONUS:

“Queen of Peace“

Source [Image: Magneto on the beach in his silly helmet]

And my love is no good
Against the fortress that it made of you…
The damage is already done
Come on, is this what you want
Cause you’re driving me away

Erik, take off that ridiculous helmet…

Lyrical, beautiful, full of loss and longing, How Big is the perfect soundtrack to the tragic romance of young Prof. X and Magneto. While all the songs work for Cherik, I also interpreted the songs somewhat differently through the lens of Hannigram. More on that soon.

Notes

*Remember, dear readers, actually being in a trash ship is endlessly traumatizing, and I don’t recommend it under any circumstances. Your partners and friends should treat you right: be supportive of your bodily and emotional autonomy, do their damn chores, and maybe not murder people. Just stick to the fictional trash ships, recognize they are “problematic faves,” and carry on.