A pause for poetry

Or why I tend to avoid listening to music. (Said the music teacher)

When I was in tenth grade I had the ear worm of all ear worms lasting at least 12 months. It was the first 16 bars of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. It never left my head. Always there.

While not a conscious decision, I've come to realize that I don't listen to a lot of music (again, said the music teacher.). It's all just so much.

My favorite artist of all time is Rickie Lee Jones. I think I know all the feels in all the albums. And then one day while trying to get Zumba songs out of my head I bump into one that I've owned forever that suddenly stops me in my tracks.

RLJ is more than just a vocalist. She is a poet. Up there in the ranks with the best. The thing about poetry is that you don't necessarily have to experience what the poet writes of to become immersed in the power of the language. I have never been (knowingly) left for another. Unless of course you consider whiskey a lover. Then maybe. Maybe a past life experience is why it resonates with me.

Video here

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pXpuguMnP8E

You are the sweetest boy I know
I've lived my whole life in the past
But I awoke last night at last

I thought I’d finally won your heart
And that forever never part
And in sweet love we would grow old
Now I'm just a scavenger in the cold
I'm just a scavenger

All I can do is wish you well
And light the Bonfires of hell
Honey, you hurt me bad this time
I'm burning everything I find

You hurt me bad this time
You nearly tore me from my mind
Before I knew I had been hurt
She laid her hair across your shirt

All I can do is wish you well
And light the Bonfires of hell
There's just one thing before I go
You are the sweetest boy I know

If there's a sun, I'll watch it rise
To dry the tears out of my eyes
If there’s a river, you can bet
There’ll be a sea for my heart yet.

 

My thoughts- the contrast between "you are the sweetest boy I know" and burning everything she finds in the bonfires of hell.

"Before I knew I had been hurt, she laid her hair across your shirt." The feels but so simple- and then she repeats part of the line as if she can't bear to repeat the whole thing.

She takes the cliché, the sun will still come up tomorrow and turns it on its head. "If there's a sun, I'll watch it rise." She know but doesn't want to know.

As of now I've spent every moment driving in my car (two hours today) with this song repeating. I have to hear it again and again. Also, if you end up liking this one, search YouTube for RLJ and Lyle Lovett singing North Dakota- another one that once it starts is on perpetual repeat. Oh the sounds.