7 Keys
I recently linked to Genki Zenki’s “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” post as an aside, but I wanted to come back to it and hash it out a bit. In case you missed it, GZ went over some music that isn’t really listenable anymore due to relationship ruin, and asked if it was possible to reclaim any of that stuff, or do we always just have to suffer through losing some of our favorite songs after a relationship goes south?
The reality is that this totally happens, to all of us, whether we want it to or not. Even if I didn’t put my favorite song on a mix for you, chances are I thought about you every time I heard it while we were together. If I did give it to you, the blow is even more crushing. Being the smart girl I am, I never gave Pavement’s “We Dance” to anyone for the longest time (years and years), because I didn’t want to lose it. I wanted that song just for me, and I didn’t want it associated with anyone else because I knew how risky it was. I did, however spend a lot of time in college crying to “Strings of Nashville”. I’d never give that song to anyone, though, unless I wanted them to know they might need to implement a suicide watch on my behalf. “Strings” is unique, though, because even before it became associated with a terrible breakup, it made me cry whenever I heard it. There’s really no taking that one back, it was always a doozy.
There’s this other aspect to losing our music that deserves to be mentioned, and it has to do with our brains. Sure, it’s hard to hear a song that reminds you of something sad that happened to you, or a person you miss or lost, but so much of it is just us, not the music at all. For me, the songs that I’ve ‘lost’ sit like boxes I’ve peeked into but never totally opened. I know what will happen when I open them, so I pretend they’re not there. But how bad could it be?
Pretty fucking bad, actually.
Built to Spill’s “Reasons” is one of those that I have a really hard time with. I bought the album with a boyfriend, and we wore it out together for months. We took a road trip with one tape, Built to Spill on one side, Pavement on the other. For whatever reason, the Pavement memories don’t trouble me in this particular situation, it’s just the memory of cruising down I-95 with “Reasons” playing, holding hands, smiling, laughing … yeah, that’s a tough one.
Then of course there are the songs that don’t even relate to too traumatic of a situation, just a person or time period that you don’t want to have to consider anymore. There was a kid in high school who I crushed on for months, and eventually got up the nerve to talk to at a show. His name was Gabe, and he was tall and wiry and dirty as the bottom of my shoe. I mean dirty as in slept in his backyard and had something against deodorant. But oh, he was something. And oh, I was at the height of my dirty punk period. One night, we kissed in the middle of the parking lot where everyone went to skate. It’s been 13 years, and I can still hear the skateboard wheels rolling over blacktop and feel the flourescent lights on my forehead as I stood up on tip-toes to return his kiss.
I never loved him, and that was our only kiss. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with an ex-girlfriend moving back into town. (And that exact situation has happened to me more than once, I’ll explain in a moment.) Regardless, before the other girl returned, he made me a mix tape. The first song was “Want” by Jawbreaker. This is one song I’ve managed to reclaim, but I’m not sure if it’s because so much time has passed or because he was just a crush that happened to sting a bit before it flickered out.
Then there are some fucked up memories that don’t have any music associated with them, for whatever reason. The other guy who broke my heart in the 90’s dumped me on my front patio in the middle of the afternoon by telling me that he had just heard from his ex, she was moving back to Arkansas, and he was pretty sure they’d be together. I was totally taken off guard, we had been seeing each other for months, and I just sat there, staring at my feet for what seemed like forever. He waited silently for me to respond, occasionally uttering something like, “Sorry, just trying to be honest,” and “I guess you like me a lot more than I like you.” Silence. I’ve been so successful at blocking him out of my head, I don’t even remember what kind of music he liked, or what we listened to when we were together.
The song that was playing when I caught the biggest doozy kissing someone else on New Year’s Eve in a back room at a party was the Pixies, “Gigantic”. I’d rather get dumped for someone else on my front porch than walk in on getting dumped any day. I remember saying, “Why didn’t you just tell me we were over?” Why not just be honest instead of letting me sit in the other room thinking you’re off buying beer? The whole situation surrounding this breakup is complicated and (to be honest) pretty emotional for me, so let’s just say I walked home barefoot in my party dress and cried to my housemate until the sun came up. The Pixies were pretty much fucked for years after that. “Gigantic” suffered for a long time, and it still hurts to hear it, but I can muddle through if its a happy situation.
So I suppose I’ve regained quite a few of the songs that used to be impossible. I wonder if the few that still haunt me (that I haven’t mentioned, because I hang on to private relationships with songs that way) will ever see their day again. I do know that a song can take a new life when given a new landscape, but sometimes I’m so afraid to let them, they never get their chance. An interesting mix (if I had the cajones) would be a collection of the most painful songs in my life. There would definitely be a good mix of sounds and time periods, but I’m not sure what I’d do with the CD when it was done. Probably bury it, or give it some dipshit who’d break my heart. Heheh.
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