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Nutshell Kingdom: Break Your Heart (Over and Over)
2005
You, who are out there sharing your music with me, making me tapes and CDs to play alone in the car, the stuff that really gets you: I am sorry. I'm sorry that life is hard. I'm sorry disappointment happens. I'm sorry things get so confusing. I'm sorry your parents are going to die (or already have). I'm sorry you're alone in the middle of the night sometimes. I'm sorry the things you love are slowly disappearing from the face of the earth.
If I could, I would step in and fix all these things. Or at least be a comfort. Or something. I think of you and I feel both strong and helpless simultaneously. We can never get drunk enough for this world. We can never have enough sex. There will never be enough music. The morning will be too short, our bedtime comes too soon.
What can I say? That stuffed bear you had named when you were like two, that decomposing Paddington with the one good eye, lovable to the last, expendable long ago, an innocent victim to college and checkbooks and career choices...? He's upstairs in some 115 degree attic today, or lost forever to some landfill, or will be in due time, and while I know that you still feel guilty about it, about him and his fate and how his sad demise is just an unavoidable consequence of doing what you needed to do, how can I make something that BIG alright? The world is littered with split seams and rusty Tonka trunks.
What is your destiny? How can I tell you what I see when I hear your little heartbreak coming through speakers, out there on I-66? How can I say everything is going to be fine, when everything you play for me begs to differ? 'Drive faster,' I'd say, 'and take less pit stops. Don't linger at those highway rest areas. They are filled with bad men.'
I may not be the exact thing you need, but I am listening hard to the CD you made me.
Yeah, and I know it's embarrassing, but I love that Gin Blossoms song too. Oh, and The Outfield. And Patti Griffin. Good songs. Break your heart over and over.
