lies:
The other day someone posted a question for her followers: If you could only pick one, what would you say is your favorite song? I had to give it some thought, and went through a lot of songs and artists in my head. But then I rephrased the question to myself this way: If I was only going to get to hear one song, one last time, and then no songs forever after that, what would it be? And then I knew the answer: “Family Life” by The Blue Nile.
I don’t think it’s a choice that many people will recognize. The Blue Nile was kind of obscure, and Peace at Last (the album the song is from) didn’t do well commercially.
But the song resonates with me emotionally in a way that’s hard to explain. It relates to my experience as a child, living through my parents’ multiple divorces and remarriages, my elder siblings leaving, growing up isolated and bereft. And then as an adult, building my own family, but surrounded by the spectre of other marriages and families that broke apart, dads moving out to depressing apartments, living through holidays that, despite the best efforts of everyone involved, became less a celebration of family and more a painful reminder of its absence.
It’s a song without much hope. It looks backward rather than forward. But it’s an honest song, one that helps connect me to experiences that have defined who I am and that I don’t want to forget.
Reposted from https://lies.tumblr.com/post/674880307436109824.
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