Stupid with the tired

[itsallovernow]

A good friend of mine's Mom died last night, somewhat unexpectedly, so I was over there until 3:00 a.m. When I left, trying to figure out where my keys were, I wished I were a better person, that I could have made myself stay with her until the cab came to take her to the airport. But three nights with far too little sleep was just too much for me. God, this situation is so awful. I didn't know what to say to my step-sisters last fall when their father died, and I don't know what to say to C. I can't imagine that feeling, don't want to until I have to. It's the kind of thing that really makes you question being so far away from your family, weighing the worth of proximity vs. the drawbacks of place.

The lyrics meme is going around again, and I love it but I am TERRIBLE at it. I have lines of dialogue from 20 years ago in my head, I have lines of fic, of poetry, of novels and bad textbooks. I've got conversations, and pregnant pauses and quips and commercial jingles and the punchline to a slew of bad jokes and dirty jokes, but give me a song lyric without the music and I'm lost among the clover. If offered the reverse, if offered the musical phrasing from the same song, I can fill in the lyrics, but apparently, without the melody, I'm lyric deaf. And lyrics are important to me, they're the heart of the song. I find most electronica pointless because it doesn't have it's own lyrical set. Classical music less so because it tends to tell a story in different ways, but if it comes down to it, I'm still going to choose something with lyrics, even if the lyrics are in a language I don't understand.

I also tend to think of lyrics to the entire song, as opposed to lyric snippets being pulled from their whole. I think, in part, it's a distinction between lyrics and poetry because poetry makes it's own rhythm and pop music makes it's own text, but that text isn't complete until the right texture is added, the right nuance in the way the words counter balance the sound of melody and harmony. It's why Bob Dylan's poetry sounds like cracked out psychobabble and his lyrics sound like truth. He's a brilliant songster, but he's not much of a poet.

I also find that frequently in a song, a particular line will jump out at me, that I'll wait the whole song for that line, will immediately fall silent until it's over (much like I do while watching a show or a movie, waiting for that punchline, that speech, etc.) I'll replay Fake Plastic Trees over and over again for the "And if I could be who you wanted If I could be who you wanted All the time, all the time" which means nothing without the rest of the song, and really means nothing if you don't listen to it after High and Dry and if you don't pause and eventually listen to The Bends.

And Hallelujah for the last phrase:

Maybe there's a God above
And all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It's not a cry you can hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

And you know, there's a reason that Jeff Buckley's version works best, and my theory is that it's the sigh at the beginning. It's the way he knows, going in, how much this song is going to hurt.

And First day of my life for this:
"Remember the time you drove all night
Just to meet me in the morning" and I'm not sure why.

And this section in Pavement Tune:
You see I want my life to make more sense
I want my life to make amends
I want my life to make more sense to me

I want my life to make more sense
I want my life to make more sense to me

So let me take you by the hand
And lead you through this troubled mind
You said yourself we had a plan
To get us all back to the line
We talk about it everyday
But we keep forgetting what it was we came to say
Now don't we

Just hits everything right, it hits arc and melody, phrasing and ferocity, and it's nothing without the music. Like that moment in Helpless where everything is soft, and knifing, where all you can feel is longing when you here the phrasing with the lyrincs woven through like embroidery. Of God is A Bullet, when her voice growls into the chorus.

They're inseperable, even Dylan, inseperable form the music because the music backs it up, says yeah this may sound trite, or contrived, but when I'm there with my own muscle to curl and flow, it transcends.

Watched Gilmore Girls and laughed my ass off because apparently Paris and Doyle really are taking Krav Maga. I've done those same knee things and I hate them!!

Comments

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

I'm very sorry to hear of your Mother's loss.
I didn't know what to say to my step-sisters last fall when their father died, and I don't know what to say to C It's never easy to find the right words, perhaps there aren't any. A simple "I'm sorry", and a willingness to listen is often the best thing you can offer.
My condolences.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's nothing more to be done than listening and being a presence, but you always want to offer more.

[scrubschick.livejournal.com]

My deepest sympathies for your friend and her family and a big hug to you for staying up so late with her.

I haven't lost anyone that close to me either yet. My mother-in-law but at that point it was a blessing and affected me no where near the way it did my husband. But as my parents near 80, I wonder how it will be and how I will deal with it and, since inevitably one goes first, how I'll deal with the one left behind. Scary. For now, they're both healthy as the proverbial horse. I'll think about it tomorrow.

*hugs you and your friend*

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Thanks dear. The sentiments are very welcome on her behalf.

[jenlev.livejournal.com]

{{{hugs}}} and also wishin i had better and more useful words.

[fourteenlines.livejournal.com]

A good friend in high school lost her mother to a long struggle with breast cancer just before the start of our junior year. She was a mess the whole year, and somehow, because my father had died (long ago, way too long ago for me to remember it, or to have gone through the mourning process) I ended up being the one who got elected to comfort and help her. And it was HARD. I feel bad for your friend, but I feel bad for you too, because there's all this guilt for how difficult a situation like that can be for YOU; but you shouldn't feel guilty. It's tough. Between that and a couple of other people needing too much from me, I pretty much had a nervous breakdown when I was 17. So help your friend as you can, but take care of yourself, too. {{{you}}}


And I know what you mean about the music. I like the lyric meme because the words will occasionally call to mind the music - the words have shape for me, that's why I quote them so often. But they are much LESS without the music. Like that bit in "Pavement Tune" that you mentioned - those words are nothing without the way Glen Hansard sings it, so worked up the words hardly come out at all on "we keep forgetting what it was we came to say." (The best way to hear this song is to be standing right there while he sings it and shouting along with I WANT, MY LIFE, TO MAKE, MORE SENSE and going softer and softer until you're just breathing the words, and then everything erupts with the guitar trill and SO LET ME TAKE YOU BY THE HAAAAND and *whimper* in my ideal world I could see these guys ALL THE TIME.)

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

(The best way to hear this song is to be standing right there while he sings it and shouting along with I WANT, MY LIFE, TO MAKE, MORE SENSE and going softer and softer until you're just breathing the words, and then everything erupts with the guitar trill and SO LET ME TAKE YOU BY THE HAAAAND and *whimper* in my ideal world I could see these guys ALL THE TIME.)

Hee - it's much easier to just to say an emphatic YES! to this than to try and reply with any degree of coherency.