Today, the tormented, large-scale questions of Demon Days are more relevant than ever—a statement that will be true whether you are reading this essay in the year it was written, 2019, or much further down the line. The sense of dread that the world is ending has endured pretty reliably for thousands of years, as has the sense that maybe art can offer a reprieve, and neither seems to be in any danger of receding. We're stuck with the doom and gloom, but we also have an artistic promise: that maybe those two impulses can be reconciled through the fusion of a monologue from Dennis Hopper, a children's choir, and the rapped missives of Bootie Brown of the Pharcyde.
