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‘We possess nothing in this world other than the power to say “I” This is what we must yield up to God’ — Simone Weil   ‘God break down the door You won’t find the answers here Not the ones you came looking for’ — Nine Inch Nails   Photosensitivity warning: Many of the hyperlinks in this essay go to live videos, which feature a strobe light     I was 10 years old when The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails was released in 1994, and I listened to it more than any other record for the next six years, when everything I knew about myself was disintegrating and becoming unknowable It lives in my blood memory, the soundtrack to the most formative part of my life When I think of that time, my memories resonate with those songs, I can’t imagine myself without them, who I would have been Since then, twenty-five years, I regularly go through periods where the only thing I listen to for weeks, months at a time is Nine Inch Nails, and this locates me, returns me to myself When you love a band for more than half your life, something happens as their songs come to live in you, they echo through how you remember the past, and fortify how you are legible to yourself in the present   NIN was the first band that got me in trouble with grown-ups – for this, they have a special place in my heart that no other band will ever touch For Christmas vacation in 1996, when I was 12, I brought the Broken EP with me when I went to stay with my Catholic grandparents Broken was packaged in a cardboard ‘digipak’, so my grandmother, rather than struggle with a plastic jewel case, could open it like a book The lyrics were printed on the inside, though I was singing them aloud all the time too I think Grandma had the biggest problem with my favourite lyric – ‘Gotta listen to your big-time, hard-line, bad-luck, fist fuck’ – but there was enough offensive sentiment on that