Life is subject to change at any time.
Like any human being, time changed Will Toledo’s perspective on life.
Seven years separate the original “Mirror to Mirror” version and the critically-acclaimed “Face to Face” version, which I will be reviewing. Those seven years saw an era of growing fame and a record deal for lead singer Will Toledo, but also further maturation of his character.
Toledo’s debut project in 2011 took Bandcamp by storm through its quirky, lo-fi sound that was one of the first of its type in the indie rock world. Toledo had been recording all the songs from his car (hence the alias, Car Seat Headrest) while writing songs using his English degree from William & Mary.
Toledo spends a fair share of the album discussing his love life, particularly through his lover’s art. The works he references are the art of Cate Wurtz, who created lots of Car Seat Headrest art and is also the lover that “Twin Fantasy” is dedicated to. As he writes about their relationship, he builds a world using his ability to be vulnerable and make mistakes.
His writing makes his intelligence very clear, yet he ironically creates faux terms like “galvanistic” in the original version of “Twin Fantasy”. This moment occurs in the monologue of “Nervous Young Inhumans”, where Toledo says, “so I used the term ‘galvanistic’ to allude to that book as a sort of a symbol of how I, like, created you as a character. I’m pretending that I know a lot more about you than I actually do, and also to refer to the fact that I’ve fall— fallen in love with the characters you’ve created in, uh, your body of work.”
Toledo and Wurtz’s toxic relationship is exactly what created “Twin Fantasy”, but the characters created within the work aren’t them. Instead, these characters come from Toledo’s vivid imagination, which he puts into his works to depict how he was feeling when making them.
These feelings are in no way just the typical feelings of love, though. In the track “Beach Life-In-Death”, Toledo even says “last night I dreamed he was trying to kill you / I woke up and I was trying to kill you”. Obviously, his relationship with his lover isn’t healthy, so much so that Will finds he is having murderous thoughts, yet he still cares for his lover throughout the album.
Even directly after the track, Will continues to plead for his lover to stop smoking in the track (which is aptly named), “Stop Smoking”. Toledo believes that smoking is a slow suicide, but refuses to take no for an answer. He is constantly trying to alter the things about his lover that he doesn’t like, much like how he “woke up and [he] was trying to kill [her]” in “Beach Life-In-Death”.
His attempts continue to be unsuccessful, as does the relationship. This comes in part due to the distance they suffer from. His words in “Sober To Death” are an example of this. He sings, “take your hands off your neck and hold on to the ghost of my body”, yet in the next verse it changes to “take my hands off your neck and hold onto the ghost of your body.” Yet again, the toxicity is reaching Will, who once again decides to try to violently end the relationship.
This is just one of the many contradictions in his work – after all, “Twin Fantasy” was written to be a paradoxical album.
One of those paradoxes is in the form of titling in “Sober to Death”. Some three tracks later, though, Toledo titles a track “High to Death”. “High to Death” is the contradictory pinnacle of Will Toledo’s love fantasy to me; it’s where Toledo finds himself reverting to his ways the most. In the track, Will finally gives up. He tells Wurtz to keep smoking because he still loves her regardless.
Will finally realizes how damaging his mindset is to his own relationship, which reveals why he titles the album “Twin Fantasy”. His dreams consist of wanting to be one with someone through love, represented by the anthropomorphic, interconnected dogs on the cover. The dogs on the cover are connected through and hug, and to be one is to have the same mindset, which is what produces the same dreams or “twin fantasies”. However, his fantasy can never be a reality due to how draining this relationship is, in part due to how Toledo handles his feelings from the start.
Wanting to right his wrongs is too little too late for Toledo, who even says, “I got so fucking romantic, I apologize. Let me light your cigarette”. This shows that even Will’s partner is tired of the romanticism, so he instead has to realize the truths and focus on realism.
Since the course of the romantics was so messy, it is only logical that the end of it will be even messier. In reality, it’s not. This is also the final parallel between both the “Mirror to Mirror” and “Face to Face” versions, where the relationship ends on “Those Boys (Twin Fantasy)”. The former sees Will “give up” and forces him to “rejoin society”, but the latter gives a more mature resolution. Instead, Will realizes this really is just a fantasy. It’s something he and his lover can exist in while being a part of the world. In his words, “these are only lyrics”.
Even if this may be true and they really are just lyrics, “Twin Fantasy” does more than just provide words amongst noise for the listener. “Twin Fantasy” is a source of comfort and relatability for the listener, and that is why I love it so much.