redblondehead's Blog

the first time i ever fell in love

posted February 28, 2008, 7:39 pm | Log In To Post Comments | view comments (4)

The first time i heard "These Days" by Nico was in the Royal Tenenbaums, the film by Wes Anderson. I downloaded the song a couple days later after I watched the movie. It was my junior year of high school. Like all new songs I went through a routine: I'd listen to the first half, listen to something else, then go back to it, and eventually listen to the entire thing but skipping ahead before the few final seconds. I listened to it over and over and over, almost everyday, the reason escaping me as I look back and try to remember why. All I know is one day I was taking a test and all I could think about was the bridge. I started to not even care what someone was saying, I was listening to the song in my head. At parties I would secretly hope they would play that song, just so I could say that I know it, and that I like it. And without knowing it, I became obsessed. It crept up on me and I felt it like a warm blanket, cradling me, and all of a sudden I felt everything. I felt love. I felt pain. I felt emotion, for the first time in a while. Just like that.

 

I literally burned an entire CD with just this song. I'd drive to school and have it play over and over again the car stereo. It would get stuck in my head during class that, by 4th period, I'd have to coerce my friends into eating lunch in my car so I could listen to it more. Sometimes I really couldn't take it, I'd have to excuse myself to the bathroom to walk over to my car and listen to it. Teachers got suspicious so I'd have to take my ipod to school, and listen to it under my hood, or in passing period. Over and over again I played this song, easily 500 times in one week. I'd almost listen to it the whole way through, but the last part was the worst, I'd always restart the song with 10 seconds left. I didn't want to hear it end.

 

I'm sure you get it by now that I was pretty obsessed. But recognize that this is before I even knew what the Velvet Underground was, let alone Nico. And the sound from her guitar was nothing like I've ever heard before. For some reason I'd been embarrassed about listening to folk music, it resembling what my parents may listen to. But she was gothic and beautiful, the lyrics so simple that I couldn't understand them. Her vocals were syrupy and sweet, something I can't recreate. She sounded genuine. I believed her pain because I felt it.

 

Mostly because I could understand it. The lyrics actually speak to me. Literally preach to me. As if she looked into a fucking microscope and examined all my pressure points, every wrinkle, every blemish, every scar, and knew where they came from. It a song about imperfection. About not knowing why or how the world gets to you, why it's out to get you. And part of this unhappiness is self-loathing, part of it you blame on yourself. Part of you wants to alleviate blame from everyone else and place it on yourself, like you're doing them a favor. What's true is that, yes, I do a lot of talking, and rambling, like this, but just the same I think all the time about the things that I should have done, all the times I had a chance to get them done. Tell you that I love you. Tell you I'm sorry. I'll never forgive you.

 

I wonder if I'd see another highway, another way out of the system. Some way to remove me from all these problems. But as they pile up, will there be some sort of mystical ladder to lead me out? Will my greatest love be this song? All this shit, all this skipping class, putting myself in awkward situations and one night stands and failing tests will soon catch up to me. 

 

But I just can't do that. "It's just that, I've been losing for so long." I'm used to losing. I'm used to not getting what I want, ever. And I've learned to accept that, and be all right with that, because no one gets what they want, really. I've learned to be happy with that. And then maybe one day I could be legitimately, completely happy. I could smile and not feel guilty. I could feel like my kisses are worth stealing.

 

But "I don't think I can risk another these days." It's been so long since I've been legitimately loved. Unconcentrated love flows out of me to every friend I've ever had. But it's my own fault, since I don't fall in love with boys (or girls for that matter). I fall in love with movies, with songs, with light, with photographs. Fragments of lyrics and poetry, of real conversations. With complete strangers. I can find beauty in things that don't matter, but I can't give my heart to a living breathing human being. My heart is reserved for songs like these, moments where I love myself a little less because I know I can't do anything that great.

 

In the scene with "These Days," Margo gets off the bus to meet Baumer, the man who is her brother by adoption but also her secret admirer. As this song played, and as she stepped off the bus and met his sunglass-obstructed gaze, nothing mattered. It didn't matter that she was flawed, or that he was either. It didn't matter that she was married, cheating, lying every day. It didn't matter that he was in love with his sister, or that he wasted a year of his life running away from the person he should be running towards. Because they were both beautiful. Because they were good people. They just want everything that everyone else wants. They want security. They want love. They want to hold each other and say, "Who loves you like I do?" like it's of no consequence. They want to secretly be in love with each other and have that be okay. They don't want to be defined by their decisions. 

 

I hate it when people judge me. I hate it when my mom tells me to change my clothes or brush my hair even though I'm in my twentieth year. I hate that my friends correct my grammar. I hate it that people underestimate me on the field because I'm short, or small, or childlike. Don't point out all my downfalls, "I have not forgotten them." Don't "confront" me with things I already know, and things you've never had to deal with. Things I hope you never have to deal with. It's not your fault that you don't understand, but I hate you anyway, I can't help it. I'm entirely human, by the way. Don't blame me for being down on myself and don't criticize me for it. And I don't blame those that have hurt me, because fault isn't the issue. It's the fact that I am no different from you. That I, like you, am an explosion of life, and my emotions are just a barrier to the truth: that we are all connected by the simple fact that we have the same mother, that we are all going to the same place at the end of all of this. That love, prosperity, happiness is all universally accepted as good things. My heart aches like yours, but just at different times.

 

In the end I realize that, yes, I'm imperfect. No surprise there. But when I listen to this song I realize that the world as a whole is imperfect. And, for the most part, that's okay. I'd like to believe that the world I live in is full of sadness, and mistakes, and imperfection, and loneliness, and everything bad. That way I can appreciate the value of happiness, of love, of perfection, of peace. And also believe that I'm never the only one. I'd like to believe that everyone breaks, everyone cries. Just so I feel less badly when I do. 

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