I have so many drafts in various stages of completion or lack of, so what am I doing writing something new? Writing a new essay is like buying a new jacket. I have too many of both. I need to just wear what I have.
But even though I have a ton of jackets (so many jackets), I can always find a hole in my jacket wardrobe, some jacket use case that I cannot address with existing resources. And because I tend to write about the same things over and over again (books, swimming, handbags; and of course, jackets) there are also lots of everyday life situations about which I have not ever written so much as a word.
Like songs. I write about music a little bit here and there, but not very often. And one day last week as I listened to my new favorite song for the fourth consecutive time, I thought that I should write about falling in love with a song.
Songs usually have to sneak up on me. I like to sing along with music, and so I tend to listen to songs that I already know and love. There are a lot of them, and it’s a pretty odd collection. Eclectic as it is, though, my favorite songs list is well established. It’s a comfortable little clique. It’s not easy for a new song to break in.
But it happens. Sometimes, I fall in love with an old song that I’d never thought much about when it was a new song. A few years ago, for example, I happened upon the Richie Havens recording of “Here Comes the Sun,” and it became an instant top ten favorite song for me. I can listen to that song any time. Just a few days ago, I was driving home from work and heard the Temptations’ “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” a song that was on the radio all the time when I was a little girl, and it threw me for a loop. That song is so great, and so radically different from the Temptations’ earlier work. That ominous bass line, the gradual build-up, the syncopated hand-clapping, the alternating solo vocals (especially the falsetto) - it’s all so brilliant. Seeing that my own papa was also a rolling stone, I didn’t like that song at all when I was young. Even at age 7 or so, I knew all about men who spent most of their time chasin’ women and drinkin’. I didn’t need to hear the Temptations sing about it. When I heard it last week, it didn’t seem like a throwback. It seemed brand-new
Other songs grow on me. When I was young, I worked for a self-important, pretentious little chain of stores. This little company was so full of itself that we, the ignorant and provincial staff, were not allowed to change the music selection dictated by the “creative director.” (But we did it anyway, all the time). I could tell you some stories about that place, but I won’t, because it still exists and it’s still full of itself. I have to admit, though, that if it weren’t for that stupid store and its stupid artsy pretension, I might never have heard Erasure and The Sundays. Erasure, in particular, drew me in slowly but surely. It’s been almost 30 years, but “Hallowed Ground” and “Heart of Stone” remain among my very favorite songs ever.
*****
“At teatime, everybody agrees,” OR “at tee time, everybody agrees?”
It could be either, right? I drink a lot of tea and so in my life, any time could be teatime. And I wouldn’t set foot on a golf course unless you paid me, and you’d have to pay me a lot. So for my purposes, it would always be the former. But I looked it up, just to be sure.
*****
Then there are those songs that take many years - decades, even - to worm their way into my affections. I am not an Eric Clapton fan, and will pretty much fling myself at the radio to turn off “Lay Down, Sally.” But “Promises,” which was on the radio all the time when I was a little girl, and which I ignored because it wasn’t the Carpenters or John Denver or Fleetwood Mac or Olivia Newton-John, is actually a great song. After forty or so years, I’m a “Promises” fan, and will always stop what I’m doing to sing along with that song. Same for Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s “Southern Cross,” and Chicago’s “Searching.” Actually, I’ve come to love almost all 1970s Chicago, almost as much as I hate 1980s Chicago. This is a point of contention between my husband and me. He likes the garbage Peter Cetera “Glory of Love” years. There is no accounting for taste.
*****
And speaking of the 80s - throughout that whole decade, I avoided hair band metal. Everything from Van Halen to Def Leppard to Whitesnake - especially Whitesnake. What kind of name is that, anyway? I hated all of those bands and all of their music. Until suddenly, I didn’t. Sometime around 2007 or so, I was driving somewhere with my then-little children, who were strapped in their car seats in the back seat of my Honda, and Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” came on the radio. And instead of reflexively hitting a preset button to switch to something else - anything else - I turned it up a little and sang along. I still sing along with that song. That song is awesome. Van Halen, Guns n Roses, even Def Leppard - I love them all now. Not every song, and not all the time, but 80s hair metal has finally, after 40 years, earned a place in my stone cold heart.
*****
But the best thing is when I fall in love with a brand-new song when it’s still actually brand-new and not just new to me. When you turn on a radio and hear a song that you’ve never heard before and it just speaks to you, it feels like the world is wide open. It feels like anything is possible.
It begins with a catchy melody, the kind that gets into your head so quickly that you’re singing along the second time you hear the chorus. Then a lyric, a turn of phrase that speaks to you for whatever reason - it’s funny, it’s beautiful or relatable, or maybe a little of all of those things. There’s that moment when the right melody and the right lyrics hit me at just the right time, and I know that a never-before-heard song will instantly be my jam. This is what happened to me the first time I heard Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero.” The first time, I tell you!
“I have this thing where I grow older but just never wiser.” Yes, Taylor - I know exactly what you mean, because I have that very same thing! Witness - remember when I said that I have too many jackets? Well I do but I just bought another one. Older but never wiser.
The house dance beat and that opening line drew me in, and then the hook: “It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero.” Oh my gosh, it totally is - you have no idea.
The lyrics so beautifully capture the rueful self-awareness (it takes real self-awareness to admit to your own “narcissism disguised as altruism”), the growing dismay as a still-young but maturing woman realizes that she is no longer the ingenue, no longer the “sexy baby.” She cleverly uses a young woman’s language (“It’s me, hi, I’m the problem”) even as she skips ahead 30 years to imagine herself as a rich old woman with a scheming, murderous daughter-in-law. It’s a brilliant song, and only Taylor Swift could have written it; not because there are no other brilliant songwriters but because it’s about her own particular peculiar preoccupations, which she’s unafraid to admit to and even sing about. It’s about her life, past, present, and future - the girl who was once the sexy baby pop star and who is now the “monster on the hill,” a star so big that she has distant admirers rather than friends; a woman so rich that someone is probably already scheming to separate her from her money - maybe a crooked agent or accountant or manager, or maybe a greedy future daughter-in-law.
I liked Taylor Swift very much already, but this is the song that made me love her. Her earlier music, while often lyrically and musically brilliant, always seemed to belong exclusively to the young. I could hum along with “Blank Space” or “We Are Never Ever Ever Getting Back Together” but I couldn’t claim them as my own. I’m way past the break up with a bad boyfriend stage, and I was never the romantic drama girl, never a nightmare dressed like a daydream. But the woman who will stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror? The person whose depression works the graveyard shift? Yeah, that’s me. I’m the problem. It’s me. Taylor knows.
No comments:
Post a Comment