thank yous

There is certainly no way that I can give enough thanks to these ladies who have gotten me through the last week and a half. But just because one can't do enough, doesn't mean one shouldn't do anything, shouldn't even try. First off, thank you Mariah Carey. Thank you so fucking much. Your early work helped me get through those early tough days after being broken up with, especially Emotions. The titular track from that album, "Make it Happen," and "Can't Let Go" were played over and over and over again. For whatever reasons, no one else really did it for me in those first couple of days.

There were few things I could listen to. They were either too depressing, too glib, or they just didn't get it. Music that had often been treated as background noise of late has regained the tremendous power it has to move. I have again been actually listening to music and lyrics and what is actually being said, what is being felt, in a way that I hadn't been, and it's unfortunate that it took a breakup for these feelings in me to again come to the surface. But they are here and I am feeling things and rekindling my emotional relationship with music.  I had to leave work early one day because the sad blues songs they were playing were far too much for my then emotionally fragile self to deal with. I had failed to realize that all of these songs I hear all day long are actually insanely depressing, that nearly every song is about love or heartbreak. It was a bit difficult to find songs that could be played in the house when Jacob was home. I didn't want him to think that I was trying to send him message with the song selections. Needless to say, Mariah Carey wasn't really played around Jacob then. I remember playing Roisin Murphy's Overpowered when he was home one evening, that it was emotional enough for me without actually announcing to him how emotional I actually was.

And so thank you Roisin! Thank you so much! In the weeks leading up to our breakup, I had become obsessed with "Tell Everybody," thought it was such a beautiful song, with its minimal backing beat, its plaintive plea, Roisin asking her lover to: "Tell everybody I'm your my baby / Tell everybody we're not fading / Tell everybody, no ifs or maybes." Perhaps some part of me knew this might be coming, that my baby was going to leave me, that this is why I sang along to this song as I walked to the subway, as I rode the subway, as I walked around this city, singing out loud these lyrics, these commands to a lover to say that they are still your baby even though they are leaving you. I have been skipping over that track now that the scenario has actually come to pass, now that I am actually living that song. It's way too close to home right now. I have though been listening to "Let Me Know," which is a bit dancier and announces wisely, "I don't belong to you and you don't belong to me, so don't hold on too tightly. Let forever be."

Thank you Whitney Houston. Thank you Lauryn Hill. Thank you Erykah Badu. Thank you Fiona Apple. Thank you Robyn. Thank you Adele. Thank you Beyonce and your album 4, which I finally am appreciating and realizing how great it is. You ladies really saved my life this past week. Thank you so fucking much!