my sleeves have come unstitched

A part of me really wanted to just post this song, give you the title and let that be the end of it. I feel like anything I’m going to say about this song is going to ruin it. Words cheapen it. But I’m kind of shameless that way.

There was another, much, much newer song that I contemplated posting, but it’s going to have to wait until next week. This song returned from the past, got into some crevice of an atrium, and just refused to let go. I don’t know if I was just occupying the wrong space and time or was just an idiot when I first came upon this song, because it really didn’t register with me. And then out of nowhere, I was watching my favorite television show on Friday (and, yes, it’s still my favorite show despite the dubious storyline that has been unfortunately introduced). At first, I was just marveling at how perfectly the music fit the show. But then it was nagging at me; the song sounded so familiar.

And now it’s gotten so that I don’t really know how to write about this song without getting uncomfortably personal. It’s like this song knows things about me it shouldn’t, or like it cracked a combination and whoops, all my guts just spilled out on the floor.

It really makes no sense, on a lot of levels, and then it makes perfect sense on others. It makes no sense because I’ve been single for eons, have had mostly disastrous relationships/quasi-relationships, and have been almost always happy alone. And most people assume I’m the sort of person who stomps on rainbows and pops colorful balloons with glee; most people assume I’m fairly jaded. Yet, here’s this beautiful song and I am totally a sucker for it. More than a sucker for it. I know all about this song. I know this feeling like the back of my hand and would welcome it back into my life in less than a heartbeat.

But then again, it makes sense, because if you really listen to this song, it’s all about illusion or self-delusion. However you want to characterize it, here you have someone walking on clouds in a world that may be entirely of his own creation. And whether it’s real or not is not really a question he’s yearning to answer. The unknown is much prettier, after all.

I have all these assumptions, assumptions I dare not even share, but that I hold close to my chest, assumptions that keep me warm and allow me to float from time to time. I am certain some of them are false, but I am not keen to suss it out further than that. Which probably explains why I have such affection for this very brief Russian poem translated by Albert C. Todd:

Eagles and butterflies (and some other things)
Still live. Let’s leave them in peace.
And clouds. Don’t disturb them either.
Let there be you and I, two umbrellas and the rain.
And if everything gets broken, there’ll be nothing,
And people have broken so much inside.
- Nina Berberova

But setting all of that aside, just the gentle vocals and the delicate guitar and the quiet pauses for piano keys leading into a crescendo of vibrant electric guitar are enough to make you swoon. Maybe this whole post is just a friendly warning: soak up the song by all means, but pay too much attention to the lyrics and you could fall into my predicament.