“Special Vision” (100 song) – Queen City Sounds and Art

100_SpecialVision2_sm — 100, photo courtesy the artists

Rowen Tucker of Australian post-punk band 100 took inspiration for the writing of “Special Vision” watching from Sydney’s Hyde Park workers retiling the roof of St. Mary’s Cathedral. All that toil and outlay of resources and for what? The expansive urgency of the song charges its words with a paradoxically melancholic and angsty energy both raw and pointed and atmospheric. Its chords cut and highlight literate and thoughtful observations and introspective examinations of one’s own relationship to what some might think of as the larger issues of existence. Except that Tucker grounds it in a spirituality rooted in life experience rather than empty promises of reward in the great beyond. The line “Sacred space for the chosen few” skewers the aspect of religious faith that reinforces class differences and linking poverty with lack of morality. In singing “Spend my life making bad decisions, I do it clean because I’ve got no religion” points to a personal morality in which one acknowledges one’s own mistakes and their consequences with no need for guilt or eternal punishment for “crimes” and “transgressions” that mean little outside a religious context. The chorus, and the source of the title of the song, “No special vision” is like a non-religious chant rejecting that post-Manichaean ethos of judgment and guilt necessary in most modern Christian sects. No need for thinking you’re special and above others because of one’s special relationship with god. The immediacy and grit of the song is palpable and fans of New Model Army and Pile will find much to like about the band’s inventive guitar work and pointed poetics. Listen to “Special Vision” on Spotify, connect with 100 at the links below and look for the group’s new EP out later in 2020.