Conspirator
- Brian
- I went out there in search of experience To taste and to touch and to feel as much As a man can before he repents.
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Tension & A Day in the Life
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| Jeffre http://www.flickr.com/photos/formatc1/ CC BY-SA 2.0 |
I think one of the best examples of this intuitive aspect of writing is what Paul McCartney and George Martin did with the orchestral crescendos after the "I'd love to turn you on" line in the Beatles' song "A Day in the Life." Those crescendos are held until just the right moment, building tension, anticipation, and then, finally, release. And, also the release of that final chord--E-major--played by five people across three pianos and one harmonium. I've never spoken with a Beatles fan who didn't marvel at the majesty and brilliance of this song.
It seems like so much in life is tension. It's easier to avoid relationships because eventually there will be a conflict that hits us on a deep, emotional level--the type of conflict that is difficult to resolve. Even though that release, that resolution, would be deeply moving and powerfully freeing, it's not like in "A Day in the Life."
The Beatles could have omitted the orchestral crescendos, but they also could have held onto them too long. They could have held that tension so long that their presence was hurtful to the song, to the magnificent, even unexplainable, feelings that they create within the listener. If they'd done that, it would ruin it--not just that song, but the whole album would be different.
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| Miroslav Petrasko http://www.flickr.com/photos/theodevil/ CC BY-SA 2.0 |
Tension in an interpersonal relationship can be trickier, though. The resolution isn't just something one person decides to do internally in their thinking. The two (or more) people must work it out; there must be a conflict. Many of us have just become accustomed to ignoring conflict and simply hoping the tension fades away. Probably with minor disagreements, this is possible. But, some conflicts create baggage. Things happen and we can't let go. We live with that tension in our lives--the crescendo is held for so long that the song, maybe even the whole album, is ruined. Tension, when it is not addressed with in an appropriate amount of time, becomes baggage that blinds us in the present. Things that happened a long time ago distort our present and we often miss out on what's happening, what's being said, what's being shared.
I'm not sure what makes us avoid tension-resolving conflict. It could be that letting go of that hurt means we let go of the ability to see ourselves as in-the-right and another person as in-the-wrong. I mean, sometimes that's why we cling to the hurt. Yeah, conflict can be really uncomfortable, but maybe we avoid it because grasping the baggage--holding too long to that crescendo--is comforting because it reassures us of our rightness or our goodness. It reassures us that we're experienced and that they're inexperienced. That we're educated and they're uneducated. That we're intelligent and they're unintelligent. That we're right and they're wrong. Even if that baggage makes us sick, what we have to give up in order to be rid of it presents itself as an impressively strong deterrent to resolution because it's rooted in our self-image. Maybe, it's even rooted in our selfishness.
At the moment, I don't feel that I have any such conflicts in my life. Certainly not that I'm aware of. This is just something I was thinking about as I compared tension in writing with real-life tension in interpersonal relationships. In literature (or music), we want the tension resolved, but that doesn't necessarily seem to be the case in life, which is interesting.
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