A Self Called Nowhere: Psychedelia, No-Self, and the Dotted Line of the Mind

When a They Might Be Giants deep cut meets Buddhist impermanence. Featuring guest author, Steve Goldberg from Earworms and Song Loops.

This week’s edition of Kiss Me, Son of Blog is a special one: for the first time, I’m featuring a guest contributor.

The song is A Self Called Nowhere, and I’m honored to welcome Steve Goldberg, author of Earworms & Song Loops. Steve’s work is a thoughtful blend of music writing and memoir, exploring the ways songs embed themselves into our daily lives. His essays are witty, personal, and deeply engaging, which are exactly the qualities that make his perspective on this track a perfect fit.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading this as much as I did. If you’re new to the newsletter, consider subscribing so you don’t miss future posts.

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A figure dissolves into thought during meditation. A visual echo of “no self” and the surreal landscape of “A Self Called Nowhere.”

The Dotted Line Surrounding the Mind

I have been a dabbler in Buddhism for a couple of decades.

It began when I signed up for a night class on Buddhism at a local community college on a lark.

I was attracted to the Buddha's wise teachings, his focus on developing and deepening qualities like loving-kindness (metta), compassion (karuna), and equanimity (upekkha), and the plethora of practices designed to bring a sense of calm presence, or mindful awareness, to the body.

I’m a super anxious person, and sitting still for more than five minutes is a huge challenge much of the time. My brain usually interprets such inactivity as an opportunity to worry, plan, conjure arguments, and list the things I should be doing instead of meditating. It’s taken a long time to realize that this is normal, that most of us have highly active minds, and the key is to watch the antics of the brain without getting caught up in its stories.

Focusing on an anchor — the breath, sounds, body sensations — has been a helpful tool to slightly quiet my mind. It’s much easier to do when I’m in a group of others who are meditating, as I’m less likely to give in to the whims of my hyperactive brain.

Over the past fifteen years, I’ve attended eight silent meditation retreats (I’ll be on another this October).

I think of my silent meditation retreats more like rehab. But with a higher success rate. I’m “forced” to sit on a cushion (or chair) in 45-minute intervals, alternating with 45 minutes of walking meditation, for twelve hours a day for 7 days. It’s quite challenging, and I’m constantly tempted to give up and go home, especially during the first three days. But, amazingly, by day four or five, I’m aware that my mind has become considerably quieter. Slower. I still have thoughts that pull me away from the present moment, but I don’t get caught up in them. Paying attention to my breath, to each step I take as I walk, to every bite of food I eat at mealtime — it rewires me, it untangles me.

There is a wide range of branches or schools of Buddhism. The one I tend to follow is Vipassana (Insight). Most of them, though, follow the same 3 core tenets or beliefs. These are often called The Three Marks of Existence, or The Three Universal Truths. They include:

• Impermanence (Anicca; in the Pali language)

• Suffering or Struggling (Dukkha)

• No Self (Anatta)

The first two, impermanence and suffering, made complete sense to me right away. I understood that everything is impermanent and that we tend to cling to the good things in life and try to get rid of the bad. And this struggling against impermanence causes suffering.

But #3, “no self,” I could not grasp at all. I still don’t have much of a grip on the notion. I’ve taken workshops on it, read books, and still the idea eludes me.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended an online meditation/discussion on no self, and nearly everyone there admitted to struggling with the concept. Our teacher suggested that the key is to stop trying to “figure it out.”

As a person who spends much of his day trying to “figure things out,” this advice sounded like she was advising me to stop being myself.

Which perhaps is the whole point of no self.

The Store Where They Let Me Play The Organ

When Chase Roper asked if I’d like to write an essay on “A Self Called Nowhere,” the 14th track on They Might Be Giants’ John Henry album, I was thrilled. How serendipitous to be assigned a song with a title that coincided with the Buddhist concept I struggled with so mightily! Maybe rock and roll had the answer I’ve been looking for!

Chase has been methodically traversing through the TMBG catalog chronologically, one song per week, for more than two years now. The band is nothing if not prolific, and each of the five albums Chase has explored thus far has at least 18 songs. So big props to him for taking on such a huge project and knocking it out of the park. Only 18 more albums to go! Good thing you’re still young, Chase.

A few weeks before John Henry was released, I remember reading that the two Johns (Linnell and Flansburgh — who previously performed most of their songs as a dynamic duo) had hired a full band for their new record. I was very nervous about this change (as I was not yet well-versed in impermanence in 1994) and was afraid they’d move in a direction I wouldn’t like.

It just so happened that another favorite musical duo, Ween, was also expanding its sound to include a full band for its impending new record. In fact, Chocolate and Cheese, Ween’s fourth album, was released two weeks after TMBG’s John Henry. I guess this would be an example of synchronicity. Thankfully, both forays into full band mode were huge successes, and Ween and TMBG have maintained expanded lineups ever since.

TMBG had dabbled in psychedelia in several songs before “A Self Called Nowhere” (“See The Constellation” for example), but with a full band, including a kick-ass horn section, this would become the Giants’ most definitive psych tune in their oeuvre.

The song starts with John Linnell singing, in a mock-Boston accent, accompanied only by acoustic guitar strums, the following verse:

I'm sitting on the curb
Of the empty parking lot
Of the store where they let me play the organ
I'm waiting for my ride
But I want to wait inside
Of the store where they let me play the organ

Why does John sing in an accent? Beats me. I have scoured the online TMBG knowledge base, and even the uber-fans are perplexed by this vocal decision. A born and raised NYC boy, Linnell exudes New Yorkitude from every pore. Maybe the song is a reference to something Bostonian?

This isn’t the only aspect of “A Self Called Nowhere” that confounds me. Pretty much every lyric of the song defies easy interpretation. Take the chorus:

At the vanishing dot,
On the map of the spot,
Let me take you there
The dotted line surrounding the mind,
Of a self called nowhere
It's a thing named it
In a bottomless pit
You can't see it there
The sunken head,
That lies in the bed,
Of a self called nowhere

Perhaps it all makes perfect sense to you, but my sunken head needs to lie in bed when I attempt to connect the vanishing dots on the map of the spot.

Interestingly, for the chorus, Linnell is back to singing in his familiar Manhattan-ese. As my dad used to say, when oddities increased their oddishness: the thick plottens.

According to Wikipedia:

"A Self Called Nowhere" explores themes of identity and the subconscious mind, using imagery of emptiness and introspection. The lyrics suggest a sense of searching for meaning and connection within one's own thoughts and experiences.

I like that interpretation better than the dozen or so shared on the tmbw.net wiki page for this song. There was no consensus from the contributors, which made me feel better for having no idea what the song was about.

Here are a couple of examples from the page:

“In general, I find the song is dealing with your mind wandering while you are waiting for a long time. Where your mind comes up with crazy ideas as you deal with heightened bouts of creativity. The surreal music and lyrics always bring up thoughts of waiting for a ride and staring into the horizon.”

“This song speaks to me of a man that they ‘let’ play the organ. Clearly, this man is obsessed with music. So obsessed with music that he sold his car, though he isn't 100% sure. Probably because he’s so obsessed with music, he can't remember what he’s done. The id is the compulsive side of our mind. The music is a bottomless pit where he throws his mind and his car. He is falling apart, and so is his life.”

And finally, the one response that made me spit up my drink onto the keyboard because it is so relatable:

“This song seems too blatantly psychological to lend itself to any sort of interpretation.”

On the tmbw.net page, under “themes” for “A Self Called Nowhere,” it offers:

Accents, Altered Voice, Furniture, Heads, Mental Illness, Music, Musical Stores, Not In Major Or Minor, Oxymorons, Paradoxes, Contradictory Statements, Problems With Liner Notes, Recursion, Transportation

Well, that certainly clears things up and narrows it down!

I’m With The Band

Musically, the song’s structure is fairly straightforward. Verse 1, bridge into chorus, verse 2, bridge into chorus, extended instrumental section, and outro with repeating chorus.

But the way the song builds momentum, especially when the chorus comes in for the second time, is exhilarating. Paul Fox’s production on this song is stellar. He gradually adds in effects like reverb, echo, and flange to emulate the ‘60s psychedelic sound, imbuing “A Self Called Nowhere” with sonics to match the trippiness of the lyrics.

During the last 90 seconds, the horn section and the percussion take center stage. Brian Doherty on drums particularly stands out here. His masterful fills and accents are like culinary masterpieces, perfectly spicy and supremely tasty.

I don’t want to forget John Flansburgh’s fantastic fretwork. From the acoustic in the tune’s opening to the screaming electric, he proves he’s one of rock’s most underrated axemen.

Hi, I’m Nowhere

Perhaps, like my struggle to understand the Buddhist concept of “no self,” and my teacher’s suggestion to stop trying to figure it out, understanding what “A Self Called Nowhere” is about requires me to follow the same advice.

When I write, sometimes I don’t know what my words are “about.” I’m merely a conduit, letting them flow out of me as they see fit. It can feel like an out-of-body experience, tapping into the creative source.

When this happens, I’m not thinking or analyzing. I’m not trying to “figure it out.”

Maybe tapping into this creative energy is how I can discover my path to connecting with both “no self” and “A Self Called Nowhere.”

It seems like a good start.

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What’s your take on A Self Called Nowhere? Do you hear Buddhist no-self? A bottomless pit of music obsession? Or just pure psychedelic fun? Drop your interpretation (or your favorite “I have no idea what this song means” moment) in the comments - I’ll meet you there.

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