Palo

I've been browsing through some Eraserheads tracks in Youtube and I just realized something.

"Para Sa Masa" off Sticker Happy (1997) might not be that harmless after all. Not because it has an insidious, subliminal message telling you to recite "Natas" eighteen times or shoot up large quantities of narcotics hidden in the seeming tribute to the masses that paranoid fundamentalists wold have no difficulty in spotting (if some of them can declare Return Of The Jedi as anti-Christian, it would be a breeze doing that to a record with a naked woman in the cover). Nothing as controversial as those.

It is not harmless because in my opinion, that song is a pointed critique to the group of people it appears to glorify. In most parts the song is more hurt than actually reprimanding, as what these lines, as I understand them, say:

"naaalala nyo pa ba/binigyan namin kayo ng ligaya..."

And then veers toward this direction:

"ilang taon na rin ang lumipas/mga kulay ng mundo ay kumupas/marami na rin ang mga pagbabago/di maiiwasan pagkat tayo ay tao lamang..."

And this caps it all:

"mapapatawad mo ba ako/kung hindi ko sinunod ang gusto mo..."

That last line may have been brought on by the lukewarm reception the band got for songs that were way out of their usual fare. In other words, "fans" did not like it when their favorite band went over its head and decide to do experiments with their sound. As I recall the album's predecessor (Fruitcake) sold well, but did not sell great as their previous releases. It was totally different from the rest--all English songs, even had a book with it--and none of the daily college/juvenile shenanigans the band's most popular songs became well known for.

And finally:

"pinilit kong iahon ka/ngunit ayaw mo namang sumama..."

And:

"huwag mo hayaang ganito/bigyan ang sarili ng respeto..."

I am no Lit major but those lines might as well say they'd given up trying to elevate the average person's taste by giving them something different. Of course that smacks of arrogance and downright condescension on the band's part and I may also be mistaken since that's how I interpret it, but even if that was indeed their sentiments, then so be it. As long as that was how they felt during that time, then fine. Phoniness is worse. The band went on to record two more excellent albums (Natin99--is their best in my opinion) that were sadly overlooked by most of their fans until their eventual dissolution in the early part of the century.

But everyone got one hell of a spanking with that song.