singing my life with his words

First off, Happy Diwali and all that good stuff.

Secondly, sorry that I only seem to post these days when it's time to explain a song of the week. I won't cheapen our relationship by promising that this will improve soon.

It's not for lack of time, more lack of focus. Or more accurately, my focus is on something else. I'll show you later this week maybe, but I'll just note for the timebeing that I purchased a dry-erase board recently. Because I was convinced it would improve my life. And you know what? It kind of has.

So, instead of writing in a coherent fashion, I feel like my energy goes towards thinking coherently and motivating myself to stay coherent. I get annoyed when I can't explain myself to others, but I find it happens more and more lately. There's a big difference between understanding something and being able to explain it. I'm not in any kind of crisis that requires great pondering. It's just the articulation part that takes just that extra little bit of effort that I do not seem to be managing at the moment.

But I can tell you a little about music. Not much, but just a little. If you want to really read about music, about a personal connection, may I humbly recommend Moistworks? Whenever a story accompanies music there, well, that is the way people ought to write about music, all the time. Moistworks is actually a fantastic way to encapsulate what music can mean to people, or why it means anything at all.

Back to business: this week's song is a killer. An old, aging fossil of a killer, but deadly nonetheless. I love this song but I think it's totally naive. I think it's totally naive and gullible, yet I get it perfectly. It's exactly what you want to believe, everything in this song. And every once in a while, that 1 in a 1000 chance occurs, and it is true, and that's what you wind up remembering more vividly than anything else.

I think I first heard this song when I was fifteen. Back then, I really believed it, not the way I do now. Now, I hang onto it, but back then, I believed it. And I thought it was such a beautiful notion, because I was always something of a tomboy. The why's and how's are not so important, but it was always the case that I had to stay protected. If I was the protagonist, this song was 100% true. I put up the brave face, however unconvincing. I was always the girl kicking the shin of the boy she liked.

What no one knew was that I was singing this song at the top of my lungs in my bedroom when no one was home. Being alone was a rarity at home, but there was a span of time when the bro-seph was in track and I'd get an hour or so before anyone else inhabited the house. And this song would get cranked and I would sing along to every word until I almost choked from belting it out so loudly.

It's kind of comical, the visual. But then again, I kind of miss it, the abandon, the utter bliss of just jumping into a song. I'd sing it in the living room, pretending to confess, but the whole time, I was just hoping someone would sing it to me someday. I found it so romantic. It's all so cute to think back on, and yet I was a complete and utter idiot. You think about it, and the whole song is a problem. You're not supposed to be this guarded, you're not supposed to break up and pretend to be fine and confess in a song that you're actually pining away- that's the thing that annoying, on-again, off-again relationships are made of, not anything lasting. Sometimes I wonder if maybe I shouldn't have listened to so much music as a teenager- it left me with a warped sense of love. Maybe Nick Hornby was right about the dangers of music. But more likely, I already had these warped ideas, and the music just gave me a soundtrack.

Some people are just drawn to the rollercoasters and instability. I was listening to Fresh Air the other day, and Katha Pollitt was describing some of a recent book she wrote about her failed relationship. She postulated that women are drawn to the wanderers, the fleeting guys who just can't make good. Rather than going with the tired hypothesis that women like a challenge and think they can change these dudes, she suggested that maybe these women wanted to be them. She might be onto something.

Either way, this is one of the best songs ever recorded. Yes. It is. I dare you to argue with me. Actually, instead of arguing with me, why not give me that one song that you think will never get old? I'm always curious.