Peeling back the curtain: how Dennis Cooper impacted Bradford Cox’s lyrics
Several things qualify Deerhunter as one of the most substantial outfits of their generation, with one of the most essential being Bradford Cox’s lyricism. While the band’s music exists at an intoxicating nexus of shoegaze, indie, art rock and experimental, largely mirroring the feelings inherent to the suburban ennui experienced by many listeners, the words always add another dimension to the aural experience.
Although Deerhunter’s sonics are enveloping and highly immersive when at their best, Cox’s surreal and transgressive wordplay consolidates the sense of postmodern stupor by spinning tales that examine the sordid, dark side of humanity that we all know exists no matter the environment. Just as their music evokes hazy memories of endless summer days wandering the neighbourhood as teenagers, pissed, stoned and every so often lovelorn, Cox’s words draw upon what lies beneath the curtains of the apparently peaceful cul-de-sac.
It might be best to think Deerhunter’s music exists in the same sphere as fictional pieces such as The Virgin Suicides or American Beauty. At face value, Western everyday life might seem to tick along without so much of a hitch, but behind some doors in your neighbourhood, something much different exists, whether that be your God-fearing neighbour being a leather-clad BDSM-fiend by night, the alpha male local footy player being a fan of pegging, or things that are less generally harmless kink-oriented and all the more sinister. Who would have guessed the local policeman was a paedophile?
Few artists peel back the curtain on everyday life like Cox, with his lyrics almost certainly following in the tradition of Lou Reed and perhaps even The Fall. They face the oddity inherent to human nature and modern society headfirst, primed with a microscope. They are unafraid of the maddening exhibits that exist when delving under the jet water of the psyche to the bottom half of the Freudian iceberg.
Unsurprisingly, given the postmodern essence of his words, one author who made a tremendous impact on the work of Bradford Cox was Dennis Cooper, the American writer who made a name out of exploring transgressive issues and the experiences of the LGBTQ community. His most famous novel is 1989’s Closer, the beginning of the George Miles cycle, a collection noted for their close examination of sex and violence. They are, to all extents, not for the fainthearted.
Cooper’s work has made a tremendous impact on those who came after, and Cox has openly explained his influence on his work, particularly concerning 2007’s Cryptograms and 2010’s Halcyon Digest. The most famous song that’s been affected by Cooper is ‘Helicopter’, from the latter, a number that is quintessentially Deerhunter in that it toes the line between heady melody and nightmarish dissonance. According to Cox, the dramatic refrain “Now they are through with me” was inspired by Cooper’s shocking short story about the death of a teenage gay prostitute in Russia after being violently assaulted by a crime lord.
Explaining the pull of Cooper’s work, Cox told Q in 2010: “When my dad heard Helicopter and I told him about the story that inspired it, he said it kept him up at night. I think most people can relate to the hopelessness of that song. Dennis Cooper’s writings tend to haunt you most not when they are shocking or intense but when they have these moments of pastoral sadness that just radiate.”
Following the high-profile battle between Cooper and Google in 2016, when the site took down much of his work for supposed violations, his blog, which contained the short story that inspired ‘Helicopter,’ was restored. Despite being fictional amalgams of sources, these posts make for compelling reads and provide concise examples of Cooper’s style, with the one about the Russian prostitute particularly disturbing. Whoever said art was meant to be comfortable?
