So, some folks have asked how I’m doing, and…well, I guess I got around to asking myself the same question tonight. Oops.
The hardest thing, I find, is that I am pretty much incapable of being around strong emotions. I feel like a toddler, at times – picking up on the hurt and anguish around me, but seemingly unable to behave as though it is happening to someone else rather than happening to me. So when someone close to me is upset, I’m not empathizing so much as I’m feeling the same fucking thing. This does not, as you might imagine, make me an ideal person to be around.
And music…damn, there are times when I hate music. Did you know that lots of music is about feelings? And that some songwriters are really good at communicating those feelings? And some of them are not only good at communicating them through lyrics, but also through the music itself?
To wit, I offer Nickels and Dimes (go ahead and click the link below, I dare you) which I am apparently incapable of listening to without crying now. Not because of the subject matter, because…well, I’ve listened to this song for years without similar effect. Nathan Davis was a serious songwriter (he died tragically a few years back, because of course he did), and his live album ranks up there in my music collection, but even so. Addiction hasn’t ever been my cross to bear, and this track didn’t really get to me the way that, say, Still Rock And Roll did.
Now, though…geez. Apparently when the universe kills off my dad, I get all emotional or something. So we have this song, with the lyrics at the end that repeat over and over…and it’s not just the repeating lyrics, it’s Davis’ freaking delivery, building like he’s sacrificing his voice on an altar of sound, as if he can communicate everything inside of him over the course of that last 2 minutes of the track. Somehow it all just combines to hammer away at my resolve to focus on anything other than grief until that resolve falls away, at least for a few minutes.
I got no alibis, my excuses are over.
Nothing to hide behind, I’m gettin’ sober.
If I could dream of a reason to leave me,
There would be none like the reasons you gave me.
It’s good for me, I imagine. And damn, I hate that shit.