Song lyrics I love, and why

Or: Why you should listen to Frankie Cosmos.

It’s my first post! Thank you for being here with me.

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I’m at a loss for words today, so I’m going to let other people do the talking. (Sort of.) I want to share some song lyrics with you that make me feel seen, and inspire me, and give me hope.

Fair warning, I am the kind of music listener who listens to the same 10 artists again and again, so you’re going to see a lot of Frankie Cosmos lyrics.

Let’s do this.

1.

“And maybe I don’t quite know what to say
But I’m here in your doorway

I just wanted you to know
That this is me trying”

– “this is me trying” by Taylor Swift

I have spent a lot of time in my life trying to be perfect. Trying to find the perfect words for things. Trying to find the perfect words to make someone feel better.

And I never liked the protagonist of this song, who gets drunk, who gets afraid and insecure, who hurts the ones she loves. I thought she wasn’t trying hard enough.

But I was wrong.

One time, my dad told me that, when someone needs support from you, it matters less what you say and more that you were there at all.

And I have realized that I don’t need people to show up for me in a perfect way. It means so much that they show up, period. So maybe I don’t need to be perfect either.

The protagonist of this song is in so much pain. Spiraling, unsure, confused. Maybe she’s never done this before.

But she shows up in the doorway, with no words but good intentions. And that is beautiful.

Listen to the song:

2.

“We could hate, we could love
We could doubt, we could trust”

– “Authors Of Forever” by Alicia Keys

I am not good at trusting people. Partially because I am anxious. And partially because I have been hurt before. (I feel like people maybe see me as an easy target.)

I am tempted not to trust people until I can prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they have good intentions. But that’s folly. I’ll never truly know anyone else’s intentions (unless we invent telepathy). I can maybe make a darn good guess, but that’s it. It’s a guess.

This song has been getting me through recently. It reminds me that trust isn’t something you wait for. It’s something you choose. You don’t trust because you know exactly what will happen next. You trust because your life is more beautiful when you trust than when you don’t.

Trust is a leap of faith in someone else. And I am learning to make that leap.

Listen to the song:

3.

“If you
Miss your friend
Call them again”

– “Caramelize” by Frankie Cosmos

I have known people who made me feel like, if I missed them, it was because there was something wrong with me. I should miss them less. I should need less from them.

I am thankful not to know those people anymore.

And now when I miss people, I try to stuff it down. Pretend I don’t care and it doesn’t matter and everything’s fine, they’re good without me, I’m good without them, yadda yadda yadda.

But this lyric jumped into my brain a few days ago. It posits this radical notion that if you miss someone…reach out to them? Like, maybe that’s not burdensome to them? Maybe they’ll be happy to be wanted? Maybe, even if they hadn’t reached out first in quite the same way, they’ll still enjoy getting to connect with you?

Like I said. Radical notion.

Listen to the song:

4.

“Can you tell anyone this stuff?
Can you ever tell it enough?
Will it make a difference?
Will they forget it within minutes?”

– “This Stuff” by Frankie Cosmos

I have always loved this lyric. I think I am a person full of unsaids, all the things that matter so much to me but that the world doesn’t want to hear. My dream is to find people who want to hear those things, and I am grateful that I have actually found those people.

This lyric describes what having those unsaids feels like. You want to say them. You want someone to understand. You want someone to care as much as you do. But you’re not sure if they will.

I want to be a person who listens to other people’s unsaids too. And remembers them. And feels them deeply. It’s hard. Sometimes we don’t understand, or we’re afraid to understand.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t try.

Listen to the song:

5.

“However far away
I will always love you

However long I stay
I will always love you

Whatever words I say
I will always love you
I will always love you”

– “Lovesong” by The Cure

Like with the first song in this list, these lyrics used to make me sad. Does the protagonist really love the other person if he chooses to be far away, to leave after not enough time, to say unkind words?

But now I hear it more like: Life may take us apart, or limit our time together, or I’ll say something that I don’t mean. But my care and affection for you runs deeper than that. It traverses time and space. It outlives mistakes. It makes me who I am, even when we’re apart.

You know, you can care about somebody and not have the words for why. This I am learning.

Listen to the song:

(P.S. No shade to Adele, but I prefer the original version of this song by The Cure. My mom grew up in the 80s, so I do love a good 80s song.)

6.

“You wanna be loved
(you wanna be loved?)

Do you wanna be seen
(do you wanna be seen?)

You wanna be hated,
you wanna be mean

We both know it’s all the same
Doesn’t matter which way you swing”

– “Marbles” by Frankie Cosmos

This is just true. The same part of us that screams out to be loved and yearns to be understood, is the part of us that gets defensive and pushes people away and inflicts hurt when we don’t feel loved or understood. Being sad hurts too much, so we get angry instead.

I think maybe all of us have those ugly parts inside, and we still want to be loved, and we still deserve to be loved.

Frankie Cosmos says it better than I ever could.

Listen to the song:

And that’s it!

Thanks for listening to my unsaids. If you’d like to keep listening, it would mean a lot to me if you subscribe. I’m hoping this is just the first post in a long series of endless rambles and chaos that I hope you’ll want to be part of. I promise that my posts won’t all be this existential. In fact, every post will have a different enough topic to give you whiplash. You in?

And if you have your own unsaids that you want to share, you can always leave a comment, or you can reach me at maxanythingglows@gmail.com. (Or if you know me IRL, you can find me wherever you find me.)

This is the end of the post, but it’s the beginning of the conversation.