post fifty-three

[amethysting.livejournal.com]

Give Out
Sharon Van Etten
Tramp
2012

This song makes my eyes sting.

And it's like, I know why, but at the same time, I don't.  It feel a connection to it, but it also echoes my general sense of confusion, uneasiness...this song is a succession of somersaults and that dizzy can't-quite-sit-up feeling that floods through your body afterwards.

When I first listened to this song, or rather, really listened to it, I had to close my eyes; I had to lie down.  It kind of punched me in the stomach a little bit...or, to be really specific, it hit me higher up--in the throat...it's that "in my way, I say" that I relate to the most, I think.  Wanting to say things, but not really being able to unless it is indirectly. 

I love the poetry of this lyrics.  I love that I see the song unfolding in my mind in a series of snapshots, especially this verse:

"I'm biting my lip
as confidence is speaking to me
I loosen my grip from my palm
and put it on your knee"

When I was deciding whether or not I loved every single aspect of this song, I got stuck on "It might be I always give out" that is repeated at the end.  I misinterpreted it at first, and thought, well, I relate to parts of this song, but I don't want those words speaking for me.  Like, if I could edit out the end, it would be perfect.  But, the more I listened to it, the more I got it.  I was confusing "give out" with put out, I think.  I would get to the end of the song and think, well, great, so the speaker sluts it up (I think that is going to become a Stephism)...she struggles with this first-time-in-a-long-time relationship because she, well, has a history of bedding these fellas too quickly (i.e. she resorts to the aforementioned "slutting it up" tactic). 

BUT, when I really started to focus of the image that comes to mind when I think of "give out", the song changed for me completely.  I picture a collapse...like a house of cards--with layers and layers of precariously balanced playing cards being added all the time until, quite suddenly, the foundation can't support them anymore.  I love, "it's not that I give up, it might be I always give out"...maybe it isn't for lack of effort, or desire, or whatever, it's just that assembling and holding up that house of cards is difficult, tiring; a bit unbalanced and tenuous. 

Comments

[cabaretlights.livejournal.com]

As I told you (a few times), I love this song. A lot. Part of the love comes from how excited I was to see a post from you, I think -- as I slowly realize how seriously inextricable context and song are (it makes me think of a year ago, the early days of this comm: when you posted Temporary Resident while I was in Budapest. Thinking back now, that song makes me ache for that city, that time (who'd've thought!!), but it also just made me realize how important it was to me to be connected to you, musically/friendship-ly, at such a chaotic time in my life. There's some Thursday honesty for you, haha).
But, separate from that, I love this song, and I've been listening to it regularly since you posted.

Last night I was in Rigaud lying on my bedroom floor listening gratefully (LET US NEVER SEPARATE AGAIN!) to my iPod, because like apparently that is something I do, and this song came on, and I just couldn't move. All choked up: it is one of the most heartwrenching songs I've ever heard. The fucking part at 1:55, when the percussion starts in and the music almost sinks, it guts me (it is also dependent on the Sennheisers, by the way, because I'm listening to it right now on a spare pair of iPod headphones in my classroom, and you can't hear all the layers, at all, at all.). My stomach felt like it was being pulled into my spine. There is something perfect about this song.


I also love your description of "give out" -- the house of cards. Terrible, but kind of beautiful at the same time...I have been thinking about it a lot since reading it.