I’ll admit it. I have a bizarre affection for “sad bastard” music. I’ve always had a really dangerous adoration for music that makes the listener (me) want to vomit tears of pain. And patheticness. But I was driving home from work today, and I wondered why a lot of people will listen to music that is so—for lack of something more unabashedly hipster—gut-wrenching. And I think it’s because, particularly as a “writer,” I realize that I find it nigh-impossible to explain how I have felt while in love or so desperately out of it, but the music I can’t stop listening to does it for me. And sung way better than I would have through all my saltwater deposits . . . . Let’s just say I have permanent mascara stains on my pillowcases. Anyway, these are my top three.
1. "I’m Sorry Now," by Jude
I wish you wished I wished you love
I wish you wished I wished you love
I wish you wished I still wanted love with you
But I'm through it
For those of you who are not familiar with this song, the chorus up until this point reads the same plus other lines leading up, but without the last two lines. And there’s really only four words in this quote “I,” “wish,” “you,” and “love.” What I love (read: hate) about sad bastard music is that it is often as simple as just a few words. And that’s painful because you feel like it should take someone like Milton or Joyce to sum up how you’re feeling but in reality, a four year old with a moment of clarity could say it for you. But it takes an artist to be able to say what a parrot could say and make it break your heart. Until the end of this song he’s just wanting his subject to want his approval of love- for them, or for someone else, it’s not clear. But now he’s not just wishing she was in pain. (I say she not to assume that all relationships are heterosexual but because I’ve heard interviews in which Jude expresses his heterosexuality, or at least, his romantic desire for women.) But it’s not just that he wants her to be in pain. He’s wishing that she were spending her time wishing that he was in pain. And that definitively she wants him back. Because he doesn’t love her and he could refuse her. But he does love her. Because why else would he spend his time on all this wish talking? Love just sends you on a mind-bend does it not.
2. "I Am Yours," by Tracy Chapman
When voices call me
To question my faith
When misperception
Taints my love with hate
I am yours
If you are mine.
I have a lot of history behind this song. It took a long time before I could listen to any Tracy Chapman song after my first big heartbreak. It had complications for me, at first a lot of deep new love, and then of course heartbreak with a lot of embarrassment. This is a short enough song that I almost quoted it in its entirety. The song can really be wrapped up by saying, “No matter what, I’m going to love you, if you want me. Period.” But I am just covered in chills at this verse. What this verse is saying, to me, is that “even when I’m not myself I’m going to love you, if you want me then.” Talk about masochism. What is it about that state of heartbreak that clouds your judgment and makes you want to be anyone but yourself? I have friends that could battle Sequoias in strength who have that moment of “if I was someone else…” No matter who you are, Chapman addresses, that’s one of the shitty parts of love – you lose yourself in it. When you lose yourself, it means you have a way of discovering yourself again when you’re climbing out of the muddy sewer pit of love. Just make sure you don’t get so lost that when you make it out you can’t recognize yourself anymore.
3. "Sorry," by Maria Mena
And I say baby, so I feel stupid to call you, but I'm lonely
And I don't think you meant it when you said you couldn't love me
And I thought maybe if I kissed the way you do, you'd feel it too
He said I'm sorry.
Ouch. But that’s totally it! It’s that awful feeling of “no no no you don’t get it, I love you so much, maybe if I’m more like you, if I’m as funny, or outspoken, or if I make you want to dissolve just from a look (that is, less like myself, as in the Chapman piece) then you’ll love me like I love you.” Bla bla bla, love love love. See what I mean about the mind bending? It’s just words, and it’s just notes, and they happen to be freakishly fantastic together.
But why listen to it when you’re feeling down? Because sometimes, I’ve decided, what hurts so much is not being able to understand how you feel, or how you felt- whether you were in love or you were convinced you weren’t - and it’s easy to think there’s something wrong with you. And hearing someone else say what you realize you’ve been feeling means that, for one, you’re not alone, and it means you’re not unlovable. You’re just sad. And that always makes me feel a lot better, even if it makes me cry.
