Knox Hill - Family Curse (Initial Thoughts)

Thoughts before hearing the song / seeing the video

I've seen a few of the promotional clips he's posted online about this song.

One was about a weather man who drank a drink that's somehow connected to Logan Paul and then he (the weather man) jumped out a window cause he thought he could fly. I hate Logan Paul, so this seemed promising.

Another one was a priest and he preached the holy message of Lil Nas X, also mentioning Sam Smith. They're both queer, so I'm immediately intrigued! Will I love or hate Knox after this, if it's about queer topics? We'll see ;) (I'm just kidding, I'm sure it's fine. And I'm probably reading too much into it anyway...)

Third one had Knox trying to joke with an alien and the alien was not having any of it, he was like "no intelligent life here..." I agree with this theory. If aliens exist, they're already done with our shit, they're not gonna contact us...

We already know it's a storytelling track and based on promotion, seems like it's gonna be a fun one :D

The video

I love the costumes! They really elevate a low budget video and help create characters. Showing that you don't need a huge budget to make good stuff, innovation is more important.

And I love a man who isn't afraid to put on makeup (in previous videos, like the half-silver face in The Internet) or dresses (this video). It seems so toxic if a man feels like his "masculinity is threatened" for doing those things, it comes off like... What do they associate makeup and dresses with? Women, and most people do, so that's normal. But why do they not want to be seen even the slightest bit like a woman, when everyone around them knows they identify as a man no matter what they have on? Because they see womanhood and femininity as inferior, as less-than manhood and masculinity. If a man's masculinity is threatened because of makeup or clothes of a certain shape - he wasn't that much of a man to begin with, was he? If he was secure in his male identity and masculinity, he could be in full drag and still feel like a man.

But Knox - the more I see him coming face to face with women and femininity, the more sure I am he's a good man. I can't remember if I've talked about this before, but might as well go on a tangent now that I got thinking about this again - Knox has pretty much zero bars that are sexist. He says the words "bitch", "ho" or "slut" occasionally, if it works for the rhyme scheme, but it's not excessive at all, and not targeting women specifically. The Chaos Theory (song, not album) is a topic for another day, but I wouldn't say it's sexist either. He has a few bars about him not liking Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion because they present so sexually (he's talked about this, he feels sad that female rappers have to do that to get attention and make it in the industry, and he's got a valid point there), but like I said, that's a topic for another day. Just pointing this out, because him being as progressive, open-minded and level-headed as he is, about queer topics, gender expression, feminism, etc, is one of the biggest reasons why I like him and support him as much as I do.

But, back to talking about Family Curse.

The overall story and the costumes and especially the swing scene bring to my mind a game called What Remains of Edith Finch. It's a piece of art. Some games are purely for entertainment, and that's fine, just like some music is purely for entertainment, and that's fine, but a game or a piece of music can be art as well. What Remains of Edith Finch is a storytelling indie game about Edith and her extended family. All of Edith's family members have died for various reasons in peculiar, often magical-realism kind of ways throughout the family's history. It's an amazing game, I highly recommend. If you have a proper gaming computer, then it's on Steam for 20 US dollars, otherwise I suggest getting it on console. My laptop couldn't run it, our gaming computer could (me and my fiancé share a gaming computer, we're both gamers).

Lyrics

What I gathered from them, was:
- there was a man who was a shepherd, and he died of something
- his son died in the Vietnam war, leaving a wife and at least two kids
- older one of the kids hung himself, on purpose or by accident, with a belt, before becoming a teen

And somehow this ties to Knox, I think these people are members of his extended family.
In the end he's saying that if his career dies at some point, this family curse is to blame.

Overall thoughts

I think it's a pretty good song. I didn't see any references to anyone being queer, or alien, but oh well... :D That would have made an even more interesting story. :'D

I couldn't write a more interesting one out of my family tree, even if I tried. I do have a grandpa who served in a war and got a handwritten letter from marshal Mannerheim for it. But both my grandpas died of cancer, my great-grandma died of old age, one of my grandma's died of a tumor they couldn't operate because it was surrounded by pelvic bones and organs from all sides, my mom's cousin I never met committed suicide, and that's all the stories I know. We lack innovative ways to die for a story like this :D It'd need to be a different way to die for all of them to make a story as compelling as Knox's or Edith's.

This is also one of those songs that sounds happy, but is about a not-so-happy topic. Like Hollywood Undead's Bullet (which is about suicide), Foster the People's Pumped Up Kicks (which is about a school shooting) and Scene Queen's Barbie & Ken (which is about domestic violence). Examples are just the first ones that come to mind, not specifically chosen because this song would remind me of them.