“Misery (Live)” – Soul Asylum
(Words/music: Dave Pirner, available on After the Flood: Live from the Grand Forks Prom, June ‘98, Columbia 2004)

I’ve walked through a lot of bookstores in my lifetime, and the sheer number of self-help books amazes me every time.  It stands to reason that a lot of shelf space equals a lot of sales, and as baffling as that seems at first, a new wave in new age thought crests every few months.  For example, the current pop-psychology pushes positive thinking – that living one’s life with an optimistic outlook will yield positive returns.  I’m not sure if I buy that, but I see merit in the opposite side of the spectrum; specifically, a lot of people bring negativity on themselves.  This doesn’t account for factors beyond one’s control; sometimes we’re stuck in awful situations with nothing else to do but wait it out or make the best out of it.  However, I also see a lot of people perpetually miserable because they (either actively or subconsciously) seek out things that make them unhappy.

Dave Pirner takes this idea, turns it into a pun, and runs with it.  “Frustrated incorporated,” the catchiest part in the song, turns the cliché “misery loves company” into this idea that people manufacture their own negativity.  It’s a clever way of approaching this idea while maintaining a thread of optimism (“we’ll create the cure – we made the disease”).  This is the essential notion in the song, especially on the After the Flood live album.  Soul Asylum volunteered to perform at the prom for a town in North Dakota devastated by flooding.  Their set, documented in this 2004 release, starts with a cover of “I Can See Clearly Now” and then into “Misery.”  Aside from being one of their catchiest songs, its early placement in the setlist seems designed for a specific purpose – the towns experienced enough misery already and it needs to put its manufacturing resources toward the cure.

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