The phrase “ennui” pops up everywhere from the poetry of Sylvia Plath, to the music of Lou Reed, to the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, but I’ve always found it to be a rather tricky term (not least of all to pronounce). Directly translated, it’s French for “boredom,” but ennui is a much more nuanced cocktail, comprising boredom, listlessness, disinterest, indifference, melancholy, blasé, despondency, and other words your thesaurus might provide.
In the post-industrial, Western world, even those that have never come across the term thanks to old Lou have still likely come across the emotion. Why? Not everyone is a sad sap depresso like you, you say? Ah, but it is so much more than that: it is a firmly entrenched facet of modern life, the modern condition.
And what is it to be modern if not to be utterly bored almost all of the time? We’ve all felt annoyance, despair, and existentialist dread at the tiresome, bothersome boredom of modern life—and with no small amount of guilt either. For while others starve, who are we (“we” being dwellers of modernity) to complain of boredom; while some people spend their entire lives in concentration camps, who are we to express discontent at the extreme content of our plush Western lives.
Ah, well. Therein lies the clinch.
Ennui arises from stagnation—life turned to a flobby, sighing mass. Spurned on by such modern first-world features as overall ease of staying alive (hello, microwaveable chips that somehow manage to be crisp), lack of engagement (what up, electronically delivered seven-series television box set), and general lack of purpose (don’t be coy, society that’s swell enough not to elicit uprisings), ennui is one of modernity’s defining emotions—or as the academics say, affects.
It’s hard to put a pin in ennui: its non-descript malaise makes it a nice light gauzy pall that’s detectable, yes, but only just. Like one of those white nets that keeps all the horrible bugs out your bed whilst on safari in Kenya. It produces a sense of detachment from society, a lack of engagement with the sensible world, and distance from even one’s own internal world.
By all accounts, this is a product of modernity. Philosophers often point a wagging finger at the social isolation of cities—“living together alone,” and whatnot—but even in this hyperconnected world, the malaise described by the Romantics in the wake of the Industrial Revolution persists. Ennui is, most definitely, what the kids would call a #FirstWorldProblem. More correctly, a #FirstWorldandMiddletoUpperClassProblem. Its progenitor is industrial, economic, and technological progress so great it renders more or less redundant so much of what, for so long, it meant to be alive—the inexorable struggle to exist. These days, our Wall-E hovercrafts seem but a step away. (For the gargantuan, chair-bound future humans of Wall-E no doubt suffer from severe ennui. They are, perhaps, its poster children.)
How does the modern condition’s lack of engagement and excitement manifest today? Well, for that, we turn to the poets. If the above is an exercise in understanding, the next bit is a case of expression. These songs might not say “ennui,” but by golly, they mean it (I think?).
And so I hereby present the collected malaise of a handful of artists in a six-entry list that’s entirely digestible by the tiny attention spans of even today’s ennuyed masses.
Ty Segall, Goodbye Bread (Goodbye Bread, 2012)
Key lyrics: ‘Cause who plays the game that we all play Won’t you play me today? And who sings the song when we’re gone? Won’t you sing along?
Wintersleep, Miasmal Smoke and the Yellow Bellied Freaks (Welcome to the Night Sky, 2007)
Key lyrics: Donated her eyes Donated her eyes to feel her actual senses Oh sweet sixteen To feel what life was like Donated her eyes to feel life as she imagined it
Arcade Fire, "We Used to Wait" (The Suburbs, 2010)
Key lyrics: I used to write I used to write letters I used to sign my name I used to sleep at night Before the flashing lights settled deep in my brain . . . It seems strange How we used to wait for letters to arrive But what’s stranger still Is how something so small can keep you alive
Dan Mangan, "Post-War Blues" (Oh Fortune, 2011)
Key lyrics: Let's start a war for the kids A purpose for which to unite Make them some words they can mince What they don't know, they won't mind . . . There's the deepest sleep in my life From which i am slowly coming to And every morning, i wait for the news Oh this is, this is post-war blues Make me a means to an end Oh make me an ending in sight Make me insightful again What I can’t see, I can’t fight
Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues (Helplessness Blues, 2011)
Key lyrics: I was raised up believing I was somehow unique Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes Unique in each way you can see And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be A functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me
British Sea Power, "Living Is So Easy" (Valhalla Dancehall, 2011)
Key lyrics: Living is so easy (Living is so easy) Shopping is so easy (Shopping is so easy) Dying is so easy (Dying is so easy) All of it is easy (All of it is easy)
