Depeche Mode: M (2025)

[bunniefuu]

To ensure the sunrise

through an offering of blood.

This was the premise

of Mexica human sacrifice.

A daily sacrifice by the individual

to guarantee

the community's well-being.

The location for the sacrifice,

atop a pyramid.

The connection

between art and offering

was absolute for the Aztecs,

and with these actions

they were consecrated.

Therefore, in Mexico,

pre-Hispanic cultures

stood out for their humanism.

Mictlan, the Underworld,

the land of the dead.

Each one recalling

their honorable actions in this life.

Nine levels to pass through on the way

towards the soul's full liberation.

And Death would say,

"I am that charming

and mournful magician,

who, in reaping love and joy,

forever douses the fevers of pain."

Nationalization of death,

and glorification of Mexican attitudes

towards death,

are a 20th Century phenomenon.

I don't know why we were given

the 'copyright' of Death.

The idea of a candy skull,

because Mexicans laugh at death.

When one reads old Mexica poems,

they are not making fun of death, no.

I mean, there is a hyper-tragic sense

of existence.

We realize that funeral rites

in Mexico are extremely complex...

...and this is still

part of everyday life.

I think Depeche Mode belongs

to a different time.

Depeche Mode is tattooed in the heart

of three or four generations...

...and that lets them connect

with new generations.

What I think is hard

for a band nowadays

is to last as long as Depeche did.

Clearly, filling the Foro Sol

many times over is impressive.

People here 'get' their music.

We feel it.

We have a lot of that

undercurrent of death,

of darkness, we're well aware.

Mexico's reality

is rather dark itself.

Memento Mori is mature,

remarkably interesting...

...a great record conceptually

and the dark stuff it contains

related to death, to the pandemic,

what is going on in the world.

Where we keep sinking lower.

It's that kind of record.

What country can we go celebrate

in a way that isn't tragic?

Mexico.

Because in this part we're celebrating

and remembering the dead,

we're celebrating

what we were in life.

So I believe this album somehow

brings us back to reality,

not just in the poetic sense, but also

talking about experiences, right?

Particularly after all these years

have passed,

and what the band has lived through.

In the end, we shouldn't forget

we will all die someday,

and thinking

something will last forever...

isn't good, right?

And I went into a room

covered in eyes,

eyes on the walls,

eyes on the ceilings,

eyes in the corner,

eyes looking everywhere.

As if there was anything

other than eyes watching eyes.

Then suddenly, they all saw me,

and blinked at once.

"Come back here, behind the hill

to the great beyond."

My people,

who are visiting me, tell me.

Tell me it's similar to this place,

but things are more like...

you know...

like the pause between parties,

when another party might be coming.

But now it's silent.

A long silence

that refuses to take shape.

And no, to answer your question,

there is no Divine justice.

The only justice is Cato's justice.

I want to answer, but how?

When what little I know,

I learned on this side of blinking.

What we've got here on either side

is a 'Huey tzompantli'.

An altar made by the Mexica

to honor the Gods.

It's made of dead bodies,

skeletons, and skulls.

I also have here

some technological corpses

that met with commercial death

years ago,

but I see in them a chance

to overcome that death

and to give them a new purpose.

And there is a long tradition

of links between death and technology,

especially representative technology.

I mention this

'cause of the obsolete tech, right?

It begs the question of,

well, what Is real?

What does it mean

to represent what's real?

Maybe representing reality

is more like representing a feeling,

or a moment, right?

It's interesting to think about

how in an aesthetic universe,

we have access

to the best possible tech

we've had in the history of mankind,

it really feels more authentic

when something uses

some older technology.

So how does death

become a national symbol?

That's a very strange

and curious thing about Mexico,

because many things that are called

Mexican traits really are not.

Starting with the Day of the Dead.

And in that sense,

I think it should be compared...

to something like,

if you want to call it,

the nationalization of Sex in Brazil.

I mean,

in Brazil they nationalized Carnival,

in Mexico,

we nationalized the Day of the Dead.

And neither one is a National holiday.

Carnival and Day of the Dead

are both Catholic holidays.

No, Carnival is not Brazilian.

Day of the Dead is not Mexican.

And, why in the 20th Century

do you have these countries,

who are and consider themselves

'mestizo' countries,

are these two subjects being fused?

Death and sex are similar,

because in both cases

you have blending bodies,

dissolving bodies,

bodies dissolving for the common good.

Every death is a unique event.

The radical singularity

of that moment of passing

is quite overwhelming, isn't it?

And all the while,

there is a brutal contrast

with the fact that thousands

are born and die every day.

Hence we come

to the question of mourning,

which has to do with memory.

One night I dreamt

that my mother had died.

At the edge of the garden,

I saw a kind of

natural limestone step,

a malformation, perhaps an altar,

and on top of it,

hundreds of heads weeping,

praying for their dead full of hatred.

I remembered my brittle-boned

Indian mother,

and I bowed my head to pray as well,

but my language was different

from theirs.

And then Death

slapped the back of my head

with disdain and confronted me.

"You should learn to pray

for the unknown first."

Someone placed a tray filled with cups

in my hand, and Death added,

"Now I'll pray for a girl's corpse,

and you'll dance

to the rhythm of my tears

without spilling a single drop

from these cups,

until the wine or your mother's bones

are consumed,

and you discover that the pain

in this scarring being

does not lie in prayer, but in dance."

In the earliest written account

on record,

the Sumerians told the story

of Gilgamesh,

a man who sought to become God

in order to attain immortality.

In his quest, Gilgamesh finally learns

that immortality doesn't lie

in eternal life,

but in the legacy of our actions,

that will live on in the memory

and in the hearts of others.