On "I Am The Cosmos"

"I Am The Cosmos" (1992, Rhynodisk) begins with its heartbreaking title track and leads its listener up a wistful, melancholic incline until it stops abruptly and leaves them with a flood of different emotions. Its recording artist, Chris Bell, had many disconcerting problems, which show prominently in his only full solo album. The most lighthearted of these is his clear shyness, which he expresses gently in his acoustic love ballads (You and Your Sister, Speed of Sound, Though I Know She Lies), which explore the resonant finger-picking earlier seen in his former group Big Star's heart felt, adolescent take on "Romeo and Juliet", Thirteen. Among his more serious obstacles, however, were his oft sneering cynicism, deep depression, and heroin addiction, all of which feature thematically in his mellow, albeit rough, rockers. Most prevalently, though, Bell indicates his distrust and wariness towards romantic bonding. In the third track on the album, Speed of Sound, Bell communicates his skepticism as he questions his beloved about her apparent indifference towards him, later elaborating that he simply longs for her to return his feelings for her ("So it goes/On and on/My love grows/And yours is gone"), and eventually falling back to and ending on a note of his rejection of emotional sincerity by stating that his "heart has been broken" and that "The plane goes down/Will not land/Pilot's dead/Nowhere to be found". Furthermore, in the aforementioned title track, I Am The Cosmos, Bell strains his low self-esteem explaining "Every night I tell myself/I am the cosmos/the wind" and then "But that don't get you back again", before proclaiming his ultimate fear of loneliness ("I never wanna be alone, never wanna be alone") and going on to sing nonsensical, but nonetheless beautiful, lyrics perhaps further telling of his objection to emotional openness.

In the heartwarming ballad You and Your Sister, Bell sings with painful grace "All I want to do/Is to spend some time with you/So I can hold you/Hold you," revealing songwriting with such an affecting, well-intentioned innocence that it contrasts drastically, and largely for the better, with the music of his Pop contemporaries. Midway through the song, Bell once again revisits his fear of lost love, singing "I want to hear you say/Your love won't be leaving" as former band mate Alex Chilton ambiently sings "Run, Run" in the background, softly reassuring Bell's hesitance. Contrary to what others often say, You and Your Sister is comparable with Chilton's aforementioned composition Thirteen only mildly, to this writer. Though both songs are musically similar, and may sound lyrically on par with each other at a glance, Thirteen is a far more hopeful song than You and Your Sister, as it tells of a mutual romance between two youths. You and Your Sister, by contrast,is about an unrequited love when taken literally, and seems to suggest that the narrator's romantic interest is the sister of a girl with whom he had assumed an unsuccessful relationship. Another large thematic difference between the two songs can be found in the fact that Thirteen reflects nostalgically upon the rebellious attitude of the late 1960s', while You and Your Sister is ambiguous towards setting and is strictly personal.

Musically, "I Am The Cosmos" is quite an achievement. Its influence upon the Popular music of the eighties is clear; I Am The Cosmos, Fight At The Table, Get Away, and Better Save Yourself all showcase an almost fully evolved form of hard rock. As for the softer songs You And Your Sister, Though I Know She Lies, Look Up, Speed Of Sound, There Was A Light, and I Don't Know, they have had a profound effect upon Pop as well, and also modern folk music, specifically that of the singer-songwriter genre. His works have influenced artists such as Elliott Smith, Wilco, and This Mortal Coil.