Enough of This Body
Is this all there is
And this is something I return to. Often in the evenings. Not long after the sun has set and darkness gradually descends. The dirty dishes on the counter, or in the sink. The crumpled napkin and the water glass left on the dining room table. The laundry, tumbling in the dryer, to later be folded and put away. The socks balled up. The towels clumsily folded and then stuffed back into the drawer above the trash can. The trash bag to be taken out. The trash bin to be wheeled to the curb on Tuesday morning. The inevitable meals that will need to be prepared. The grocery list to make. The groceries to purchase. Money to be spent and what do we have to show for ourselves.
Is this all there is. Teeth to brush and a face to wash. You take the dog out one more time. The pajamas you cram yourself into. The covers you fold yourself into. The way you curl yourself up and make yourself small and shut your eyes. Make yourself small. Is this all there is, you wonder. Our lives find their way into this rhythm. Both hands gripping the edge of the sink, as the darkness has descended. You shut your eyes. Is this all I am good for. What do we have to show for ourselves. Is this all there is.
You just go on, moving your body
Jana Horn presents this idea in two different ways, in the opening track of her self-titled album—her third full-length. The song is called, “Go On, Move Your Body,” which as it is depicted in the title, there is an ask. Or a request. Encouraging. A demand, maybe. There is a compulsion. However within the song itself, when Horn mumbles the titular phrase in the first verse, she has changed the form of the word “move.” and the expression itself is part of something much larger.
“What do you follow when there’s no scent of it,” she wonders. “You just go on, moving your body.”
It is, then, no longer an ask or a request. It is an observation. An act we resign ourselves to. And there is a space, I think, where both ways the expression is used, and what is implied with each, can exist. The demand almost taunting, in a way. In the morning. Eyes open. The alarm about to sound. Your brain already wide awake. Go on. Move your body. Do it. Another morning. Another day. In the moments when you are perhaps immobilized with a feeling you are always on the cusp of being able to describe but still cannot. Go on. Move your body. Get up. Do it. Is this all there is. We just go on. We go on moving our bodies even though they both figuratively and literally betray us every day.
We move through the minutiae. Is this all there is. The dishes the laundry the groceries the dinners pack the lunch take the dog out again. We find our lives with the rhythm and we move. Is this all we are good for. Make yourself small again.
Shut your eyes.
*
There is a very intentional nature to Jana Horn. Gradual. Meticulous in a way. Both to her music, yes, but also to her career as a musician—something that I find genuinely interesting. And I think that there is a complementary nature within that intentionality, or deliberateness. With what she makes, and in how she makes it, and where those things have naturally intersected.
Horn is patient. Or has patience. And she asks us, as listeners, to be patient with her, or to have patience with what she wishes to share.
After spending time in two Austin, Texas bands, Horn started releasing material under her own name—a limited edition cassette to sell on a solo tour, in 2018. Go On/Move Your Body. Not available on streaming platforms, you can still listen to it from Horn’s Bandcamp page.
In a short feature about the cassette, and Horn, published by Bandcamp around the time of the EP’s release, in talking about the patient, intentional nature of her work, even then, almost a decade ago, Horn said, “I’m a very slow person.”
Horn, self-described as slow, is also self-effacing about her work as a singer and songwriter. “It would be cool if my music made people laugh, but I don’t try to be funny,” she says near the end of the Bandcamp Daily piece. “If someone gets anywhere with my music, that’s cool. And great! But I don’t intend to get anyone anywhere.”
If someone gets anywhere.
You go on moving your body.
Go on. Move your body.
Is this all there is.
Horn began working on her full-length debut, Optimism, in 2018, and self-released a small vinyl pressing of it in 2020. In an interview, a few years later, with The Guardian, Horn explained she was never really looking for the record to find a wider audience, saying she was “happy enough with 40 listeners on Spotify,” and for her family to enjoy it.
There is an intentional nature to Jana Horn. Recorded in 2018, and released in 2020, Optimism was eventually reissued by the indie label No Quarter, at the beginning of 2022, introducing her to a larger listenership. She released her second full-length, The Window is The Dream, the following spring.
My best friend often describes a lot of the music I gravitate towards as “sleepy.”
I had never really thought about it like that before, but she’s right. I favor listening to artists who create things that I would consider to be softer. Quieter. Contemplative. There is often a built-in sadness, or melancholy, I am compelled by.
Yes. A sleepiness.
Horn, in the photo that graces the cover of her self-titled album, has her eyes closed. Her hair is windswept. Her right hand scratching her cheek, just below her eye. She stands outside, bundled up underneath a large jacket, positioned in front of a rock formation. A moment captured that perhaps blurs a line between candid and planned. There is bright, natural light surrounding her, offering an irony, of sorts. A juxtaposition. For Horn herself. Her intentionality and her slow nature. Yes, her sleepiness. And for the songs included on the record. Jana Horn, by no means, is an album that exists in a darkness. But it is also so hushed, and deliberate, and hazy in how it unfolds over its 10 tracks, that it does not exactly exist within bright, natural lighting.
I am often writing about intimacy, and intimacy in music, and what intimacy sounds like within a song, or an album. There was an intimacy to be found in her debut, Optimism, in both how it was recorded, and within the songs themselves, and the tone, or feeling sustained across the album. Jana Horn is, even for as expansive, or robust, as the songs included here can become in time, still an intimate album. I am remiss to say something as cloying as it sounds like you are waking from a dream, but there is a dreamlike, woozy feeling found in nearly every song. Quiet, or hushed enough. Never rising above a certain level of intensity. Operating from a place of restraint. A patience. A deliberateness. Like a secret whispered and you are on the verge of understanding.
*
Something that I am fascinated with is how an artist develops over time, or how they grow or evolve or mature, whatever, from album to album. The ways in which they might challenge themselves, or push themselves, in terms of songwriting. Or a sound, or an overall feeling they would like an album to be contained within.
The ways in which they might, in time, challenge their listeners.
It requires patience to remain attentive. There is so much asking for our time. For our ears. For our consideration. It is not always easy to find the ways to remain connected to an artist from one album to the next.
In a very slow and intentional way, Jana Horn has, of course, over the last eight years, grown and evolved as an artist—as a songwriter, and as a performer. Jana Horn, in terms of how it unfolds and reveals itself, is not a step backwards for her, w/r/t scope, or sound, but it is a turn inward, comparatively, to the sassier, looser, jazzier feeling of her second full-length, The Window is The Dream. There is this line that Horn has walked since her debut full-length, between dissonance and whimsy—it is remarkable how she does it, actually, and how she continues to find ways, within her arrangements, to skitter across the edge of that balance.
The whimsical or lighter feelings the songs often have arrive in the form of the additional elements she favors—on Jana Horn, there are flourishes of wind instruments on seven of the album’s 10 tracks, which introduce a playful feeling within what is otherwise ramshackle, sparse, and borderline stark arranging. The line that she walks, between dissonance and that lighter, or more melodious sound, is in Horn’s voice, and how she uses it. Rarely rising above a certain volume, there is an inherently charming, or cutesy quality to her voice. Sleepy, yes. Folksy. Soft. But Horn knows just when to push the notes into a place with just the slightest edge where it creates just enough friction in how it rubs up against the instrumentation that is surrounding her.
There’s this contrast that, again, occurs. The songs are an invitation in a way. There is a warmth to them. And a gentleness. But there are these moments that do, with intentionality, off-put, but she never stays in them for very long.
Something that I am fascinated with, in terms of songwriting, is the way there can be these recurring themes, or ideas, that present themselves throughout an album. These connective threads, however thin or fraying. Horn begins the album with a song called “Come On, Move Your Body”—the penultimate song on the first side is simply titled, “Come On.”
“All night, make me dance,” she begins within the first few seconds of the song, as the crash of a cymbal rings out behind her voice, and the plunking notes of the bass rumble as a means of punctuation. “Make me think that you’re worth moving for,” she continues, quietly, before the loose, distended strum of her electric guitar comes in.
“Come On,” in how it is structured, is indicative of how a lot of the songs on Jana Horn come together. The intentionality. The gradual nature. Horn is patient. She wishes for us, as listeners, to have patience with her, and the deliberate way she constructs a song. Because for as stark, or sparse, or brooding as it is, “Come On” does gather itself together, eventually, and finds a rhythm, albeit a very slow one, or a little more definition, just a little after the halfway point, which allows the instruments to loosen up just slightly, giving the illusion that they are building towards something perhaps much larger, though Horn, and her bandmates, just allow the notes to swirl and spiral gently, riding it all out with real restraint until the end.
There is a fragmented nature to Horn’s lyricism. It’s personal, yes. But she only wishes to reveal so much, and in revealing as much as she wishes to, it is portrayed through a lens that is poetic and ambiguous. In her interview, eight years ago, with Bandcamp Daily, she cites Raymond Carver’s short stories as an influence on her writing, and she has an MFA in creative writing. She captures these moments, often quite vivid, or at least descriptive in some ways, while other portions remain intentionally murky. The moments are very specific. Like, just a window into something, and she never lets the narrative get too far away from her, which, again, like the tone the instrumentation sustains in a song like “Come On,” it is an exercise in restraint. Not tension, really, waiting for release. Something measured in precision.
The self-referential way “Come On” begins, or the connective thread—“Make me think you are worth moving for,” then later, as a demand, or an instance, she does utter the titular phrase—do make this a genuinely interesting song on the record to spend time with, but what compelled me so, in listening with intention, is the very fleeting and human depiction of sensuality, or desire, found early on.
“Don’t stop, I like that,” she explains. “You don’t have to ask me. Trusting in a plan I don’t have—you can change.”
It is surprising, in a sense, this admission. There is nothing else like it on the record, and here, Horn does not spend a lot of time in the moment. It passes. The song keeps moving forward, casually collecting itself. A window into something we all experience.
Horn, and her band, continue walking that line between dissonance, and whimsy, or a lightness, within the second half of the record, on the strummy, folksy “Unused.” There is an edge, or a downcast, or an off-kilter feeling to the chords strummed out on Horn’s acoustic guitar as it subtly flutters back and forth between either side of your speakers—and later, once she gets into the verse, her voice ascends, and then falls in such a rapid way that it creates these moments, or pockets, where it is not harsh, exactly, but as she does elsewhere, there is this place of fiction occurring, done with intentionality, between herself, and the rest of the song as it surrounds her.
“Unused,” once it collects itself, tumbles into a shuffling rhythm—the percussion is delicately brushed, while the bass notes are tightly plucked, firmly establishing their place within the environment. A record like Jana Horn, and an artist like Jana Horn, does thrive, or prefers to work within a sound that is more organic in nature, and one that is ultimately intimate. And even in a song like this, which does grow to become much more robust than others on the record, there is still a warmth, or an invitation to be found. It is the kind of song that asks you not only to listen, but sit in it, with Horn, as it unravels. A dramatic piano accompaniment arrives, offering emphasis in between the bass notes and swirling, brushed drumming, and the strum of the guitar—the elements coming together with beauty and majesty, sustained right up until the startling moment when everything cuts out, save for a final cymbal crash.
Horn, even in her growth, and evolution, as an artist, can still be self-effacing, or present herself in a dejected manner, which is where she is writing from on “Unused.”
“When I go unused,” she explains in the opening lines. “Always ahead, always in the past. Turning my head like an owl. When I go unused—missing what I have, missing what I didn’t even want anymore.” There is a poeticism to it, certainly, but as she continues, Horn works to develop this deep sense of not just sorrow, or loneliness, but of feeling a little bewildered by both of those states.
“When I go unused,” she continues. “Stupidly looking for feet for my shoes,” she adds, before arriving at the song’s emotionally defensive refrain. “I’m telling myself what I think, so I don’t take you as you are, then aren’t.”
Horn uses this technique throughout the album—this intentionality and deliberateness with how a song collects itself musically. The feeling, however slight, or subtle, of a working towards something larger, even if that something “larger” is not, like, an explosive moment where the tension is finally released. There is a risk, I think, with a performer who is far less capable, that this method of musicianship or arranging would wear thin over the course of a full-length, but Horn is too sharp an artist for that to happen here. It is remarkable, and fascinating every time she begins pulling the elements together and then releasing them into the fabric of the song.
There is a surprising snarl that comes from “Designer,” from the downcast, distended strums of her electric guitar—making it one of the moodier sounding songs on this collection. And yes, Horn often takes her time, and the pacing, or the tempo, of the songs does move slowly; there is a startling kind of urgency, or immediacy, that ripples uneasily here, especially after the crisp-sounding, percussive rhythm files in. It is a moment that, even in the lusher use of instrumentation here, and just simply more happening, comparatively, there is still an quiet kind of intimacy you can detect—and you can hear the tightness, or trust in one another, that Horn has with her bandmates, as they allow “Designer” to never really get away from them, but let it breath with the appearance, again, or dramatic, brooding piano chords, and a haunted but beautiful melody coming from the clarinet.
Offering complement to the urgency the song writhes with, and the haunted feeling of the melody the further into “Designer” we are taken, there is an eeriness, and a loneliness, in Horn’s writing here, coming from a kind of abstract place that reveals just enough but leaves us not in the dark, exactly, but certainly curious—and her voice here remains in a relatively lower range, cooing some of the phrases with this strangely seductive, detached allure.
“Fully in the thoughts I can’t live without,” she remarks at the beginning. “Tell me, friend, what you hear,” Horn continues. “Deep car drive—one thousand something miles to know what I’m sure of.”
“What can I say,” she explains as the momentum of the song keeps pushing her forward. “They’ve got ice. They’ve got Band-Aids. She’s password-protected all night.”
The fragmented, yet vivid, and poetic or literate nature of Horn’s lyricism continues into the song’s second half. “Living through dreams she wakes up from, used,” she observes, before asking, “What does madness prove, Designer?”
And Horn will often pose a question or a thoughtful phrase in her writing. She does that throughout this record. And she is never really looking for an answer, exactly. They aren’t rhetorical by any means, but she is offering something for consideration as we sit with the album, and sit within the world that she has meticulously. Similar to “Unused,” the appeal of a song like “Designer,” within the context of the album is the vibe, or the feeling, it strikes. The kind of song it is all too easy to get lost in, even momentarily. There is a surprising, though welcomed, groove Horn finds in the way “Designer” comes together, and it coasts on that right up until the very last second when the careening comes to a halt.
*
Just because it’s different, nothing feels the same
What I appreciate about an artist like Jana Horn, and an album like this, is the experience it offers. I stop short of saying it is an immersive listen, but it is an album, and Horn is an artist who asks something of you. Not a lot, I don’t think. But there is an ask, regardless, and it does require more than a casual, or passive listen. This does create a barrier, I think, for some—this, and the sleepier nature of it, certainly. Horn and Jana Horn are not for everyone. I will admit that. But something I keep coming back to in both listening, and in giving earnest consideration to what I am listening to, is just the idea of sincerity. Of actually listening, and in having a thoughtful response to what you are hearing, not just a reaction that quickly passes.
I say this because there are these moments on Jana Horn that are remarkable in how they challenge us, as listeners—offering poignancy in the poetic, or literate nature of the lyricism, yes, but also in just how intricate, or curious the music itself is. How it continues to unravel, shifting slowly, with different textural elements weaving themselves in as a means of emphasis. The album’s swirling second track, “Don’t Think,” is like that. A marvel, really, in the thoughtfulness of its writing, or what it asks us to consider, and the slow-motion propulsion forward that is absolutely gorgeous and hypnotizing to witness.
There is a mesmerizing feeling from the moment “Don’t Think” begins—Horn’s acoustic guitar string plucks make way for the playful and thick notes of the bass, sliding through, with the percussive clattering figuring out how to lay down a rhythm, or a little more structure underneath it all. And the tone itself, of the arranging, continues shifting—musically, it is unrelenting in how the song keeps tumbling itself forward, but in doing so, there are these spaces that open up for Horn to offer up a little whimsy, or lightness, in how she lets her voice rise and flutter, or the flourishes of the clarinet. In turn, there are some of these open spaces where things are not as light, or less whimsical—by no means ominous, she does continue to tread that line with dissonance, and tension, incorporating an antiquated, warm synthesizer pattern that you can hear working to fold itself into the already well-established swirling momentum.
This shifting in tone creates a restlessness, certainly, but there are also these impressive swells—the moments are so brief, the notes so fleeting, but there is this juxtaposition created through Horn continuing to work through the song in this way. It coasts on this slight feeling of unease, or uncertainty, with these small reprieves where you feel, in the gorgeous swells, a small amount of comfort, or hope.
“Don’t Think” is not a declaration, in how its lyrics spill out with precision and intentionality across the dizzying arrangement. But there is grasping towards an acknowledgment, and a need for assurance, that Horn works through. “Don’t think it is different,” she implores at the beginning. “Just because it is different—nothing feels the same. Going back the way that I came will be different.”
The second verse, then, serves as more of a stark reminder. “Don’t think it is easy,” Horn admits. “Just because it is easy to love, I don’t take it lightly. A thing set in stone can begin to roll when the ground you’re on is different.”
*
With a friend, I am not on the edge, overlooking all I’ve got
My best friend often describes a lot of the music I gravitate towards as “sleepy.” And I had never really thought about it like that before, but she is right of course. I do favor listening to artists who create things I would consider softer. Quieter. Contemplative. There is a built-in sadness, or melancholy, that I am compelled by.
Yes. A sleepiness.
Because there is an allure, at least for me, as a listener, in sadness, or melancholy. Depictions of sorrow. I suppose I am always looking for reflections of myself, however unflattering, in those moments. An understanding, however difficult it might be to gaze at.
I am fascinated with the way songwriters depict sadness. Or sorrow. Or melancholy. If it is overwrought. If they are tortured by it. If there is a surrender of sorts to it. Or is it more of a pensive observation. A small act of refusal. An acknowledgment, and in that, an awareness, and a hesitation or resistance, as much as one is able, to completely give in.
Something I had forgotten about from Jana Horn’s debut, Optimism, is how she begins the song “Changing Lines”—there’s a bouncy nature to it, as she flicks a rhythm out on the guitar strings, and sings quietly, “When I wake up like this—down again. When I wake up like this—down in my brain. I don’t have any excuse to bring this up to you,” she continues, as drums and bass file in and begin shuffling underneath her. “But I tell you anyway that the day has brought me pain,” she adds. “Has it delivered you?”
When I wake up like this—down in my brain
There is a gentle, folksy, and kind of twangy nature to Jana Horn’s third track, and one of the singles released in advance of the album’s arrival in full, “All In Bet.” It’s one of the hazier, swoonier songs—at least at first. As it begins, and seemingly doing so with ease, it creates this environment that compels you to not lose yourself in it, exactly, but wishes for you to detach slightly. Allowing your eyes, perhaps, to unfocus, and to let the slow, deliberate pacing find its way into your body, swaying you side to side.
“All In Bet” is the first place on the record where Horn reveals her interest in giving the songs room to breathe, or grow. Again, it never runs the risk of getting away from her, but it gathers momentum quickly, swirling around with a graceful theatricality and beauty, thanks to the dexterous bass notes and piano melody, as well as the intricately layered and overlapping vocal arrangements.
There is an allure for me, as a listener, in sadness. Depictions of melancholy and sorrow. I am really always looking for reflections of myself in them, however unflattering they might be. An understanding, however difficult that might be to gaze at.
The sadness, or sorrow, and a loneliness, or a longing, that is portrayed in “All In Bet” tumbles out in fragments—again, Horn’s writing is vivid, but only vivid, or revealing, to the point she wishes to be. It is also a song that, in a sense, finds the frayed end of a thin, connective thread from the album’s opening track, and a question she poses in it—“Is this all there is,” Horn asks in “Go On, Move Your Body.”
It isn’t a direct response, exactly, because in the way it is asked, or posed, at the top of the album, it is done so out of desperation and exhaustion. But here, she returns to that feeling, and continues the thought, with a little more seriousness this time. “Without all, what is left? I’m honestly asking.”
The desperation and exhaustion ripple through the first part of “All In Bet”—“Yesterday I was dreaming,” Horn explains, then adds. “Today, I’m getting through. Another phone call with Sarah. Another night that doesn’t end.”
There is, as the song propels itself forward, the smallest glimmer of hope, as Horn arrives at the end, even in the kind of bleakness that surrounds the moment as she details it. “Double Down Saloon drinking,” she explains. “With a friend, I am not on the edge, overlooking all I’ve got—not over yet. All in bet.”
And I am always thinking about this. I am thinking about it a lot lately, when everything feels precarious or fragile. When the rhythm of our lives overwhelms. When we ask ourselves if this is all there is or if this is all we are ultimately good for, or useful for, in the end. I think bout these small acts of refusal. The friend who keeps you upright. The friend who has implored you on more occasions than she has wished to simply not go anywhere with the unspoken understanding of what that means.
The pensive observation that acknowledges and in that, there is an awareness. The hesitation or the resistance as much as one is able to. There is the hope or the optimism or the potential. The promise. Whatever form it takes. We cling and we cling as a means to remind ourselves that it is simply not over yet.
*
Is this all there is.
And this is of course something I return to. Often in the evenings. Not every day, mind you. No. There are just these moments. It’s after the sun has set and the darkness has descended. And I mean that, of course, in a figurative and a literal sense. The dirty dishes on the counter and in the sink. A crumpled napkin. A water glass. The dining room table. The laundry tumbling endless in the dryer. The socks balled up. The towels clumsily folded and then stuffed back into the drawer above the trash can. The trash bag, then, to be taken out. The bin wheels to the curb on Tuesday mornings. The inevitable meals to be prepped and the grocery list to make the and the groceries to purchase. The money to be spent. Is this all there is. What do we have to show for ourselves.
This phrase I keep thinking about—I hate the rhythm of our lives these days.
Teeth to brush and a face to wash and a dog to let out one more time. The pajamas you cram yourself into and the covers you fold yourself into. You curl yourself up and make yourself small and you shut your eyes. You make yourself smaller and smaller and you wonder is this all there is. The day ends the day begins. You just go on moving your body.
Near the end of Jana Horn, in the final track, “Untitled (Cig),” Horn mumbles, with sorrow in her voice, “Spirit, have you had enough of this body? I know I‘ve.”
This is something I return to.
Something that I am fascinated with, in terms of songwriting, is the way there can be these recurring themes or ideas that present themselves throughout an album. Connective threads, however thin, or however frayed. Horn begins the album with a song that she originally recorded, and released, in 2018—a version that is much stiffer, or more rigid, or cumbersome, compared to the confident, shadowy, and effervescent re-recording found here. And she presents the title in two different ways. “Go On, Move Your Body,” is an ask. A request. A demand. Encouraging, maybe. There is compulsion, though, regardless. However, in the song itself, when she quietly sings the titular phrase, she changes the form of “move,” and the expression itself is connecting to something much larger.
“You just go on, moving your body.” It becomes a resignation. An act. An observation.
We go on moving our bodies.
Have you had enough of this body?
I am always thinking about my body. How it moves. What it feels like. I am always wondering is this all there is. Have I had enough.
I think about the mechanics of my body. The Herculean effort it requires to make it move. Go on. Move your body.
There is this exhaustion in Horn’s voice. “You just go on, moving your body.” It implies that there is little if anything else we can do.
We go on moving. Is this all there is. Go on. The sharp sensation in my hips that causes me to wince, or recoil. The near-constant pain, radiating from the center of my back, for the last seven years. I go on. I move my body. Even though I have had enough.
“Go On, Move Your Body” doesn’t begin in silence, exactly, but there is this moment, before the drum kit begins to quietly tap out the rhythm, and Horn’s fingers delicately strum her electric guitar, where a kind of weight hangs. Does that make sense? You can hear the sound of the room, and the buzz coming from the amplifier, but there is this way—and she does this throughout the album, that Horn plays with silence, or pauses. The she lets something hang in the air for just a little bit longer than you might think it could, or should, before it is connected to something else. The song begins with this feeling. A willing suspension before something takes our hands, and pulls us in.
There is a sparse nature, or skeletal, perhaps, to how “Go On, Move Your Body” is arranged—and with how slowly it is paced, it could feel like there is barely anything to hold it together, or to keep it lurching forward. The ramshackle, indie-folk charm and nervousness or hesitancy of the original are long gone, and there is a quiet confidence Horn uses as she wanders through it. It is far from one of the more open, or loose, or robustly orchestrated tracks on the album, but in the haze, and in how the glacial tempo is sustained with precision, the instruments are given the time, and space, even in the restraint used, to just slowly tumble, creating enough of an overlap, or connection to one another. The dissonance, too, created through the eerie sound of the flute, serves as a shadow that looms over the entire song.
And I think it is intentional, as so much of Horn’s music is, but she does really create this stunning, hypnotic sensation through how little the song deviates—softly lulling you through the strumming pattern, and the space that forms in between the snapping of the snare drum, and the hushed tapping on the cymbal.
“Go On, Move Your Body,” begins with a resignation. An acknowledgment, but in acknowledging, something that I have come to understand, in time, is there does not always have to be an acceptance.
“Nothing prepares you for this,” Horn confesses in the opening line. “Or is a cure—no way,” she continues, then repeats the line, with the words falling, and then landing, just a little differently, in the rhythm beneath her.
“What did he write in that book—follow your bliss,” she asks, referencing the philosophy of writer Joseph Campbell. “What do you follow when there’s no scent of it,” Horn poses before she, dejectedly, arrives at the song’s titular expression. “You just go on, moving your body.”
And there is a complementary nature to “Go On, Move Your Body,” in how the slow, swaying rhythm, and the eeriness and dissonance that creeps in give Horn the opportunity to wander, and for her thoughts, or observations, to form with a gradualness. The writing is vivid—like, it is impeccable in how she captures this feeling, and sustains it throughout the song, but even in how evocative this all is, Horn never really plays her hand and we are never told, directly, or with clarity, what has brought her to this point.
“Nothing compares to a thing in a memory,” she sighs. “Nothing compares to a thing already done. I heard an apocalypse stir, and wait, and ask, is this all there is—to just go on moving your body.”
There is a sense of loss. Of someone, maybe. A connection slipping through the fingers and a hand, then, left holding onto nothing. The grief that comes in the wake.
Is this all there is.
You just go on, moving your body.
And that’s the thing about songwriting. There is, of course, Horn’s intention with the song—her meaning behind the fragments, and how they fall into place. But once it is released into the world, we are allowed, as listeners, to take something away from it. We catch humbling glimmers of ourselves in the reflection.
There is a sorrow that slowly undulates through “Go On, Move Your Body.” One that comes from a place of frustration. Of disappointment. Resentment. Of losing the desire you, perhaps, once had for something. No longer interested in pushing yourself. A going through the motions. And there is an uncertainty that comes along with that. Losing the scent of your bliss. It feels impossible to find again, and there is an allure to just walking away, and surrendering. The resignation. Is this all there is. We move our bodies.
Have you had enough of this body.
I know I have.
And there is an unease that of course ripples throughout Jana Horn. It is not one of discomfort, exactly, but there is a dissonance present in nearly every song, in the way that Horn uses her voice, and the way that she causes these collisions within the arrangement. She wishes for the environment to be one that offers comfort, and is inviting. And in that invitation, and in the intimacy of this record, there is of course the difficult, or challenging reflections of the self, and of others, that are explored.
Horn, then, saves the song that is structured around the most unease for the album’s final moments. “Untitled (Cig),” gloomy and downcast—sparse, with a palpable anguish surging through the electric guitar strums, is like an incantation, or a prayer as it moves through this creeping, or scraping sensation, as it offers us Horn’s haunting, parting observations.
“Untitled (Cig)” is the album’s most experimental, and most spectral, just in terms of how it is structured—there is a tension in the guitar chords as they are kind of clumsily strummed out, and an even more noticeable tension, or trepidation, in Horn’s voice, as she sings in a voice that barely rises above a whisper. The only other instrumentation that companies her here is the wafting notes of the clarinet, which intertwines itself with the low note of an antiquated sounding synthesizer—the experimentation, then, coming in the surprising manipulation of her vocals. A bridge of wordless singing, between verses, where her voice becomes distorted, and layered over itself, a warped and warbled echo that weaves itself into the fabric of the song’s second half, giving the song an an even ghostlier feeling.
The lyrics unfold in arresting fragments—vague, and evocative, weighed down by a kind of exhausted resignation, and some of which, yes, iare, in their ambiguity, less poignant, or resonant in the en “Smoke it down—don’t even think about what to say,” Horn sneers in the opening line, before adding, “Not how it works now.”
“Patience, tell me what it is you are thinking,” she continues. “I have time.”
Is this all there is.
You just go on, moving your body.
And this is something I return to.
I am fascinated with, in terms of songwriting, the way that an artist can present recurring ideas or themes throughout an album. Connective threads, however thin, however frayed. Horn begins the album by resigning to an act. We go on. We move our bodies. In the end, she returns to this, in a line that is chilling yes, and it is one that will stay with me for a long time.
“Spirit, have you had enough of this body,” she asks. “I know I’ve.”
Have you had enough of this body.
You go on moving it. You ask is this all there is. The rhythm of our lives these days. I am returning to this. Often in the evening. The gradual descent into a darkness both literal and figurative. And if you are like me, then, perhaps you have these moments where you take it all in. The minutiae of your life. And in doing so it feels like entirely too much. Is this all there is. The dishes on the counter and the sink and the crumpled napkin that has been on the table the entire day, next to an empty water glass. The laundry, tumbling in the dryer. The laundry, piled into a basket for the socks to be balled up and the towels to be clumsily folded and then stuffed back into the drawer above the trash can. The trash bag to be taken out. The bin wheeled to the curb once a week, on Tuesday mornings. The inevitability of the meals that need to be prepped. The grocery list to compose. The groceries to purchase.
The money to be spent. What do we have to show for ourselves then. What do we want to show for ourselves if anything.
Is this all there is. Teeth to brush. You wash your face. Take the dog out one more time. Cram yourself and your body that you have had enough of into pajamas and fold yourself into the blankets and curl yourself up and make yourself smaller smaller smaller and shut your eyes.
Is this all there is. The day ends. The day begins. This rhythm feels, at times, inescapable. What do we have to show for ourselves. Is this all we are good for.
There is this feeling, in the exhaustion that Jana Horn depicts, throughout the record, of an exhaustion, yes—more than that, though, it is a kind of exhaustion that comes from a very specific place. A dissatisfaction. An unhappiness. With another, yes. Sure. But with yourself. A frustration from deep within. You, perhaps, no longer feel the same enthusiasm you once did for something. Horn mumbles in “Go On, Move Your Body,” the line about Joseph Campbell. “Follow your bliss,” she says. “What do you follow when there’s no scent of it.”
You go on, moving your body.
You go on, and in doing so, there is the hope, however faint, that you find your way back somehow. You find your way out of the dissatisfaction and unhappiness and frustration and the scent returns and you are no longer going through the motions. You go on and in doing so there is this hope however faint that the rhythm of your life feels manageable again. Or if anything, less daunting. I understand that it is an enormous ask.
Sometimes it feels impossible, doesn’t it.
We go on. We move our bodies. Even when we have had enough of them.
In the final, fleeting moments of Jana Horn, as “Untitled (Cig)” finds its way to an ending, Horn quietly breaks the fourth wall in a way most fascinating, and compelling—even as the album is ticking down in these last few seconds, there is this invitation extended further into the warmth and intimacy of the experience.
The song ends with her downcast, fumbled guitar strums, and with the distorted, layered, and creeping wordless singing—the music stops, and there is this silence. A pause. Then we hear Horn’s unassuming speaking voice—“It was good until I messed up,” she confesses, shyly, a little flummoxed. “Should we just, like, try to do the end,” she asks, then tentatively adds. “Starting where I messed up.”
There is another pause. A silence. A response. Another voice joins Horn and says, “I don’t know. How do you feel about that.”
An artist intentionally choosing to retain small mistakes within a take, or chatter in the recording studio, is of course nothing new. There are instances of this where it can feel cloying, or disingenuous. That is not the case here. Especially coming after the dissonant creeping and scraping of “Untitled (Cig).” It does humanize in more than one way. A small revelation.
And it is, perhaps, heavy-handed. What it leaves us with. Poignant, nevertheless. Something so telling in the admittance. “It was good until I messed up.” Imploring for a second chance—even going back just a few steps, and trying again.
It is perhaps heavy-handed. The response Horn receives. The response we receive, then, too. The consideration to give. I am talking of course about things outside of and much larger than this moment. This fragment. There is no right or wrong answer.
How do you feel about that?
