Jerry Paper - "Your Cocoon"
Jerry Paper has delighted us here at Weirdo Music Forever with live performances, recordings, and conversations in recent years. His Desert Daze 2017 show was one of our favorites at the festival , which also included highlight sets courtesy Ariel Pink, John Maus, and Weyes Blood. Additionally, Jerry teamed up with Stones Throw label-mates Prophet, Stimulator Jones, and others for a series live dates in 2018. On the recording side of things, album Like a Baby includes not only standout track “Grey Area” (featuring Weyes Blood, and a natural inclusion on WMF’s Top Ten Tracks of 2018 list) but also another 2018 highlight — the stellar “Your Cocoon”.
As part of our in-depth one-on-one with Jerry back in 2018, we spoke about the idea of the cocoon, and what it means in relation to the “Your Cocoon” single. Jerry shared the following insights with us:
A lot of the people who like my music are young. And young people are ensconced in their ego because their entire teenage-hood is spent building it. In teenage-hood you’re building a personality, trying things out, and fitting your capital “S” Self into what you believe it is.
I think it’s worthwhile to spend the rest of your life dismantling that, and trying to get rid of it – not placing such importance on your opinions and the things that you like. So that’s kind of what that song is about. It’s about being closed off and thinking that your identity has been solved, there’s no more place to grow. The song is ultimately just a character imploring another character to accept the amorphous nature of being a person in the world. It’s kind of a mission statement for the Jerry Paper project. There’s some shopping imagery and it takes place in a mall, so there’s a lot of things going on in that song. But ultimately, the cocoon is the Self.
The B-side of the 7-inch single treats the listener to Jerry’s “New Chains” demo. You can purchase the “Your Cocoon” 7-inch here.
