I remember the first time I heard this song and how it made me feel. My chest tightened up and the pending threat of tears stung my eyes, and I knew right then that I would probably love this song forever.
I don't think I immediately linked the song to heroin abuse, but instead recognized the feeling of helplessness, of desperation, and of wanting to scream and run from something so bad that you were instead left silent. Certain kinds of pain bring on a silence that weighs like a lifetime of labour, and it breaks apart pieces of yourself that you may never realized are falling away.
I suppose when I heard this song I was running away, too, though I would not see it as such until years later. Hindsight and that 20-20 thing, it gets you every time.
The loneliness still lingers in this song to me, and I still can see the girl I used to be dancing in the shadows of my memory. I have a bit more distance to some of the emotions, enough to listen and see the story that may or may not be woven into the song (no matter what our own perception colours our view). That said, the song still brings tears to my eyes.
Someday I hope to go to Joshua Tree and listen to this song, I think the experience would be amazing.
I don't think I immediately linked the song to heroin abuse, but instead recognized the feeling of helplessness, of desperation, and of wanting to scream and run from something so bad that you were instead left silent. Certain kinds of pain bring on a silence that weighs like a lifetime of labour, and it breaks apart pieces of yourself that you may never realized are falling away.
I suppose when I heard this song I was running away, too, though I would not see it as such until years later. Hindsight and that 20-20 thing, it gets you every time.
The loneliness still lingers in this song to me, and I still can see the girl I used to be dancing in the shadows of my memory. I have a bit more distance to some of the emotions, enough to listen and see the story that may or may not be woven into the song (no matter what our own perception colours our view). That said, the song still brings tears to my eyes.
Someday I hope to go to Joshua Tree and listen to this song, I think the experience would be amazing.
"You've got to cry without weeping,
talk without speaking,
scream without raising your voice."
L.
I don't hear heroin abuse either. I actually just wrote a poem inspired by the Elbow cover of this song, here:
ReplyDeletehttp://onlylovecanleavesuchamark.wordpress.com/2009/05/04/self-addressed-note-left-in-desire-poem/
A