Mac DeMarco: Melancholy Masquerading as Mania
Indie music's relatable genius.
"I'm just being myself. I'm not a very complex guy; I'm not a very studious, crazy intellectual guy. I'm just a guy."
This was Mac DeMarco’s rather underwhelming take on his musical process during a 2019 interview with Far Out Magazine. It suggests an unapologetically authentic approach to his music creation. One which doesn’t concern itself with the frills and glamour of the industry. It keeps things simple.
And Mac certainly does this. So much of his music is truly beautiful for its rawness. His fifth project, ‘This Old Dog’, as the name would suggest, doesn’t concern itself with any new tricks. Utilising an acoustic guitar, around 3-4 synth chords, and his quintessentially weary vocals, it’s a project that I imagine infuriates the industry’s “larger” artists for how much it achieves with so little.
For a flavour of his sound, take a moment to watch this mesmerising video of Mac strolling through a Parisian park with nothing more than his beat up acoustic and his melancholy musings.
Whilst it's impossible to deny his distinctive sound thrives in simplicity, I must contradict his statement that he’s “not a very complex guy”. The personal themes which his music immerses itself within are deeply intricate, and undeniably weave their way through so many facets of the human experience.
Anxiety, depression, heartbreak, loss, grief. These are the ugly elements of the human condition. Yet, like death and taxes, they are inevitable for so many of us. For one of music’s defining goofballs of the indie genre, Mac DeMarco certainly doesn’t shy away from life’s darker corners. With his trusty six-string, he bravely overturns the grimy muck tossed into the bowels of his soul, and when considering his public image, it’s almost hard to believe the Mac we hear in his music is the same we see in the press.
Cathartic in nature, Mac has produced a musical mosaic of emotion throughout his career, with each brushstroke giving us an intimate glance into his heart. One of his most moving tracks is ‘One More Love Song’; an impassioned ballad that reconciles with the cyclical turmoil of an endless stream of ill-fated relationships. Appearing on the previously mentioned ‘This Old Dog’, Mac wrestles with the effort required to build a new relationship, only to have it all ripped out from underneath him, leaving him back at square one. The desolate chorus repeats Mac’s eventual realisation that all he has found:
Is one more love out to break your heart
Set it up just to watch it fall apart
Like Sisyphus and his boulder, after all his struggle and exhaustion Mac is left crumpled at the base of the relationship mountain, clutching at his heart.
The same man who portrays himself in the media as a chain-smoking slacker created a track of such romantic weight that it rivals the most complex Greek tragedies.
Continuing the pain train is a hidden gem off his debut album ‘Rock and Roll Night Club’. More layered in its instrumentation, ‘Only You’ is Mac’s musical epiphany where we see him stoically move on from a past relationship. Packed with classic Rock n Roll tropes, the track’s spine is built around this gloriously twangy bass and electric guitar that imbues the song with a 70s mystique. Layered underneath we have these sturdy drums and the occasional dashing of splashy tambourines.
Whilst the instrumental is near decadent in nature, Mac’s vocals, especially early in his career, possess the sorrow of a crestfallen knight. Over the first verse he swoons for a lost partner:
Only you, only you
Only you can treat me like you do
And only she, only she
Only she chose me when I'm blue
So sorry, boo, we're through
The fluctuations between addressing ‘you’ in the present, and ‘she’ in the past suggest Mac tried to move on from a past lover, yet found himself with someone new who’s unable to fill that hole - resulting in the subsequent “sorry, boo, we’re through”. Yet despite this yearning for the past, we do see DeMarco determinedly overcome his grief:
'Cause I'm done crying over her
I'm done crying over her
My hands hurt, I think I'll go lay down
'Cause I'm done crying over her
It takes courage to admit when you aren’t ready for a relationship, and real wisdom to do something about it. That’s precisely what we see DeMarco doing across the course of ‘Only You’ as he documents his grieving process and steps into the unknown.
But yeah, he’s “not a very complex guy”.
That brings us at last to ‘Chamber of Reflection’, Mac’s most popular song, and easily most heart wrenching - his soul-searching magnum opus if you will. If you’re aware of the song, then undoubtedly it's made you romanticise your melancholic solitude by gazing blankly at your bedroom ceiling - No? Just me?
Anyway, musically heavier than the other songs on ‘Salad Days’, Mac samples the iconic synths from Shigeo Sekito’s song ‘The Word II (ザ・ワードⅡ / セキトウ・シゲオ)’ creating this eerily beautiful synth-wave perfect for contemplating your life. The track’s title was inspired by a room people go into before they’re initiated into freemasonry, a little like a meditation room. Locked in there, with nothing but your own thoughts, it becomes the perfect metaphor for Mac to ponder his experiences across the tracks near four minute run-time.
Coupled with the spectral instrumentation, the first verse begins to explore these introspective themes of reflection, dissonance and finally rebirth.
Spend some time away
Getting ready for the day you're born again
Spend some time alone
Understand that soon you'll run with better men
Alone again
The following chorus repeats the last line, ‘Alone again’, audibly locking us within our own chamber of reflection to face our vices in isolation. Distinctively repetitive, both sonically and lyrically, the song offers little escape, asking the listener to follow Mac’s lead on his odyssey of resurrection.
These are not the songs of “just a guy”. They are the art of a very talented master of his craft. And as we all know, art imitates life, it just takes one brave soul to create it, so we, in turn, can process our own struggles through their conduit. Ironically however, it’s Mac’s ‘goofball’ persona that has made his music such a success. We see him as imperfect, as flawed, as an everyday person. It’s precisely because of that personality that we can engage with and relate to his music. Despite being an artist, he doesn’t portray himself as one. He portrays himself like us - because he is like us.
Thank you Mac, for being a happy, simple guy, who makes sad, complex songs.