Anyone who knows me or who reads this blog (especially recently) knows that music plays an incredibly important role in my everyday life. I listen to my iPod on my motorbike, while shopping, or just walking around — pretty much any time I’m not in the water surfing, really.
In addition to forming the soundtrack to my life, that same music also reminds of places I’ve been and people I’ve known over the years. And depending on the situation, any particular song can simply jog an insignificant memory or, in some cases, remind me of something so radical as to momentarily turn my world upside down.
Today at the coffee shop, I heard ‘Jesus, Etc.’, from Wilco’s 2002 masterpiece, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
The CD came out soon after I first moved to Miami. It was just after the September 11th attacks, I was working as a lawyer for someone who later turned out to be one of my better friends for the next 4-5 years, my sister and brother-in-law just had their first child, and I living with my beautiful and brilliant (now ex) girlfriend in a small one bedroom apartment in South Beach.
Looking back, it was one of those glorious transitional periods we don’t often recognize while we’re in the midst of them. I don’t think I’ve ever been closer to what I think I want, then I was at that particular time in my life. I suppose I’m lucky to even have had that. But it sometimes hurts to be reminded of what I had, and eventually lost.
In case you’re curious, I was the one who ruined things in the end — I left almost immediately after my ex suggested we buy a condo together. The typical commitment issues, I suppose.
Regardless, until the end, our relationship was fairly solid. Of course, like all couples we fought on occasion — people just tend to grind on each other, especially when they live together. But, also until the end, we always seemed to resolve things — mainly because, although she was younger than I, she was also far more mature (and intelligent). She usually did something to appease my ego while still getting me to see her side of things — effectively diffusing the conflict with little skin off of her nose.
After one of those fights, she bought me a copy of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot — one of her favorite new releases at the time. Although I had heard it playing in the apartment, I hadn’t really paid it much attention. But she handed me the CD, together with a piece of paper upon which she had hand-written:
OUR LOVE IS ALL OF GOD’S MONEY
She took the CD and played the song from where the lyric came — Jesus, Etc.. Then she sat down with me and put her head on my shoulder while we listened together.
To this day, I can’t remember what we had fought about, or (besides the obvious) why that particular act of kindness immediately resolved the conflict. All I remember is how loved and comfortable and just … good I felt at the time.
But now, with the passage of time and additional experience, things are different. Now, and particularly today, when I heard that song, and that particular lyric, it was like getting the rug pulled out from under me. Because now, in comparison, I just feel lost.
Sure, it may just be that’s the loss of blissful ignorance talking. But it stings just the same — and then the melancholy comes over me like a warm blanket.
Reading your story remained me of something too. It’s very obvious. Well, we live what we choose. No regrets…!
Did you smoke?
i’ve had these lyrics stuck in my head all day. i googled them and found this page. well said. one of the most perfect songs ever.
in certain theological circles, this concept, that our love is all god has to spend in this world, runs to the core of entire belief systems–the ones that i think get it about as right as one could get it were they charged with sitting down and dreaming up canons of a new theology. it’s why we are left to choose god or not. it’s the story of pulling down the apple. it’s why god let’s the innocent persist in pain and disease. it’s why we never see the face of god, only the face of neighbors and beggars and shop girls and thieves. saul/paul said it; lennon said it; tweedy says it. and your heart gets it. that’s why we cry inside when the song reaches that bridge.
Tom, while choosing to deny the existence of a god, I still appreciate a good metaphysical concept being applied to my situation in a way I hadn’t fully thought through. And your comment was one. Personally, I’m still pursuing my version of that concept — that it’s all the money we have to offer. Thanks for the perspective.