this one is dated to feb 6, 1998 and so comes in as the new inri005.
this is the one and only track from this period that i remixed the vocals into, and this is the only place to get that version, besides the period disc. the vocal version is also a reinterpretation, with added sequencing. so, this track actually got the full treatment. as such, it's sequenced reverse chronologically, in a traditional lead single format.
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so, how exactly does one go about being transgendered, anyways? i mean, like anything else, i guess you have to come to terms with it, first. then, what?
it was the "what next?" part that took me a very long time to grapple with before i was able to come to some kind of course of action. i don't remember exactly how old i was when i realized that i was more like a girl than a boy, but i will state that my thought process was always that i was like a girl, rather than that i was a girl. i have to be blunt: i was a precocious child. i understood the biology of sexual organs at a pretty young age. i knew which organ i had, that it was the same as the one my dad had and that it was different than my mom. i never felt as though i was in the wrong body - that's not how i'd articulate it. i knew i was male. but, all my friends were girls. i preferred to do "girl things". so, i realized at a very, very young age that i was more similar to the girls in my life than to the boys, despite being well aware that i was genetically a boy. it functioned more on the level of social inclusion and conscious choice of gender role than it did on the level of anything biological. am i really that atypical? i don't know. but, i know that i never had any difficulty at all, whatsoever, in separating between sex, gender and gender roles. so, for example: i have very early memories of asking my mom to let me wear lipstick, and of asking to get my ears pierced (3,4 years old) but i don't attach those memories to feelings of gender dysphoria. i didn't see any reason why boys couldn't wear make-up. further, nobody really "corrected" me on it. so, i grew up without any shame or second thoughts attached to being a boy that was more like a girl, and consequently without any particularly strong urges to become a girl. my very early life actually finds it's best explanation in the theories of radical feminism: because the gender binary was never enforced on me, i never felt oppressed by it. i have to argue for a very healthy early upbringing.
what screwed me up and set me back a good ten years was the school system. when i got there at the age of four and a half, i wouldn't talk to the boys. i wanted to skip rope and play hopscotch with the girls. well, all my friends were girls. i didn't know how to play with the boys. what's a marble? i just didn't know. i got stuck with a fossil of a kindergarten teacher that actually flat out banned me from skipping rope. worse, she banned me from reading books. my absolutely docile and clinically rational temperament at that age probably worked against me. but, i had two choices: i could play with the trucks with the boys in the corner or i could go to sleep.
in fact, i slept a lot.
but, gradually, the system socialized me as a male. or, at least it seemed like it did.
my path through elementary school didn't really ease up on the gender segregation until the seventh grade, at which point it was essentially too late. the system had successfully prevented me from socializing with girls, but had never taught me how to socialize with boys. so, i had spent the last twelve years of school in social isolation, usually without any friends at all. i'd lost the opportunity to have all the gendered experiences one associates with childhood - which means i was deeply socially stunted. i was still pretty smart, academically speaking. however, i was operating at the social level of a much younger child because the school system had arrested my social development through segregating me into a gender role that i didn't understand how to fulfil.
by the time i got around to writing this song at the age of 16, i'd just become entirely stoic about the whole thing. i knew i was more like a girl, but what exactly was i going to do about it? i guess i had the perspective, at 16, that life was largely about managing misfortune and you just have to deal with shit, whether you like it or not.
rational? perhaps, from a certain perspective. it gnawed at me, though. the trauma underlying the track was the realization that i was a good part of the way through puberty, without ever having signed up for it. this was by no means unexpected, either, and i didn't ultimately feel that i had any recourse of action in preventing it. but, i felt like i'd been cheated out of something and was being forced into something i didn't remotely want.
as with the rest of the early tracks, the lyrics here are at their core the exploration of a morbid fantasy. i'm taking things too far, i'm taking any excuse i can to keep taking things too far and i'm enjoying watching you squirm when i do it. in one sense, it's a sarcastic allegory on the question of thinking with one's cock, which is a bio-chemical problem that all testosterone producers are forced to come to terms with at some point. in another sense, it's a transgendered teenager carrying out a sort of morbid fantasy and desperately looking for a way to prevent the masculinization of my body.
it took me another five years or so of internal struggle before i could get to the point where i saw hormone therapy as a realistic option, rather than a kind of utopian fantasy that would be perpetually out of reach until i finally expired.
this is the only period 1 piece that was further expanded through the addition of some bass and piano sequencing near the start of the piece. the vocals were also brought back in without redaction. so, this ep starts off with a full reconstruction of the piece, intended as a lead for this single. the ep further comprehensively documents all other released versions of the track.
initially written in 1997. recreated in feb, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 5, 2015. remixed july 12, 2015. electronics added on july 16, 2015. compiled on jan 4, 2016. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, vocals, synthesizers, drum programming, drum kit, sequencing, sampling, digital wave editing, production
released february 6, 1998
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/confused-2
1) this is a new construction of the track, with added sequencing and vocals. initially written in 1997. recreated in feb, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 5, 2015. remixed july 12, 2015. vocals and electronics added on july 16, 2015.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/confused-2
2) this is the instrumental reconstruction. initially written in 1997. recreated in feb, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 5, 2015. remixed july 12, 2015. electronics added on july 16, 2015.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/confused-instrumental
3) this removes the guitars (and bass...) from the instrumental version. initially written in 1997. recreated in feb, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 5, 2015. remixed july 12, 2015. deconstructed on on july 16, 2015.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/confused-electronics-only
4) version reconstructed in 2015 from tape. initially written in 1997. recreated in feb, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed july 5, 2015. remixed july 12, 2015.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/confused-2015-reconstruction-from-1998-source-tapes
5) deleted 2013 remaster of 1998 demo cd. initially written in 1997. recreated in feb, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/confused-2013-remaster-of-1998-cd-mix
6) 2013 remaster of 1997 demo cassette. initially written in 1997. remastered in 2013.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/confused-2013-remaster-of-1997-demo-mix
7) 1998 cd mix. initially written in 1997. recreated in feb, 1998.
8) deleted 1998 original, unsequenced mix. initially written in 1997. recreated in feb, 1998.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/confused-1998-archive-2
9) deleted original 1997 mix. initially written in 1997.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/confused-original-1997-mix-2
