BASED ON PROMPT 2

The Uneasiness of Everywhere At The End Of Time

For Prompt 2, we were asked to add 3 pieces of music/sounds that would be sent out to the universe for others to hear. Personally, I added songs that had significance to its respectable culture/genre, but never talked really talked about the sound within the song itself. So here I am!

The final piece of music I would like to add to my Golden Record would be The Caretaker’s Everywhere At The End Of Time. This is the most terrifying and bizarrely beautiful piece of music I have ever listened to in my life. This is a 6 part album combined into one 6 and a half hour album that is a depiction of what it is like to have Dementia, the disease that incites memory loss. Each part of the album is a stage. As each stage progresses the sounds of the album become more disoriented, and it becomes harder and harder to identify sounds and songs, and you don’t even feel the deterioration of the sound as you continuously drift through the album. By the end, your ears are filled with nothing but static and massive walls of sounds, completely devoid of any sort of resemblance of the start of the album. It is terrifying. I’ve listened to so much music over the years, and no sort of music has ever struck this much of an emotional gut punch into me.

The reason why I would send this out on the Golden Record wouldn’t be because of the significance that this piece has into musical history, nor how enjoyable I find this piece. It would be because I believe that this album is the perfect example of the emotional weight music can carry. Everywhere At The End Of Time conveys its topic (The mental decline due to dementia) in an absolutely masterful way by using sounds of vinyls, ambience and drone sounds to strike fear, confusion, and uneasiness into the listener. Although extraterrestrials wouldn’t understand the concept of Dementia within the human mind, the sound of the album is universally uncomfortable to listen to.

Before this album, I never really understood the significance and horror of dementia, as I have known nobody that has suffered through it. But this album has helped me see clearly of the confusion, the fear, and the sadness of the disease, without even saying a word. I recommend checking out a few sections of the album, as it is truly one of the most interesting listens I have ever done.