Songs of Myself

The other night, my friends and I had gathered online for our usual evening chat, and the conversation turned to music.  I asked everyone to name a song that would be his/her theme song if s/he had to choose.  One woman remarked that it was hard to choose just one, and I had to agree.

No one turned the question around on me and asked me to name a theme song, so I didn't have to narrow down the choices.  Upon further reflection, I decided I shouldn't have to.  Life is a rich enough experience that a person's entitled to more than one theme song.

It was with this in mind that I put together the following soundtrack to my soul, as it were; an album-length playlist of theme songs, along with the reasons I chose them.  It's a bit of an exercise in self-indulgence, and I don't honestly expect anyone to read the whole thing unless s/he is terribly interested in the strange private world I inhabit.  Nevertheless, this list of songs was challenging and fun to pick out, and will, I earnestly hope, constitute a sort of pieced-together portrait of the enigma that is Truth Unleashed.

TRACK LISTING:
We Belong (Pat Benatar)
That's the Way It Is (Céline Dion)
Once You Had Gold (Enya)
People Are Strange (The Doors)
An Emotional Brain (The Amygdaloids)
Then Again (Court Yard Hounds)
I Am a Rock (Simon and Garfunkel)
I Made It Through the Rain (Barry Manilow)
Because You Loved Me (Céline Dion)
Somewhere (Barbra Streisand)
King of Pain (The Police)
The Bottom Line (Depeche Mode)
Burn (Jo Dee Messina)
Sometimes When We Touch (Dan Hill)
Strong Enough (Sheryl Crow)
The Music of the Night (The Phantom of the Opera)

Now, for the reasoning:

We Belong - This is the answer I usually give when I am asked to name my favorite song.  The music contains a soaring tension that is splendedly repeated in the chorus, and if I'm listening alone, it's one that always makes me get up and dance.  (It's by far the most frequently-played song on my iPod, since I can't seem to listen to it without pressing the replay button four or five times.)  As with the rest of my "theme songs," however, it is the lyrics that make this song especially dear to me.  This is a song about living life with a passion, in the thrall of immense and ineffable forces, and diving into this sometimes painful existence with joy and courage, embracing a distinctive and sometimes isolating worldview.  Just as much, it's about having a companion for the journey.  The relationship described by the song is marked by ambivalence and sometimes hurt, but ultimately by love.  In fact, the pain and the love and the ambivalence are all bound up as one; to consistently "cut [a person's] feelings to the bone" requires intimate understanding, after all.  Catherine Earnshaw's declaration of her love for Heathcliff comes to mind: ". . . he's more myself than I am.  Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. . . . I am Heathcliff - he's always, always in my mind - not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself - but as my own being. . . ."  I have never shared this depth of love with another person; although I burned several CDs of love songs for my ex-partner, "We Belong" was never on any of them.  It simply didn't apply to her and me.  One of the few whimsical romantic notions I permit myself is a vague idea that when I find someone to whom I could rightly dedicate this, I'll have found my life's companion.

That's the Way It Is - Laugh if you must, but I shall always believe this theme song was given to me, chosen for me by Something beyond myself.  I'd loved the song from the first time I'd heard it, but it didn't become special to me until the day I came back to California after my ill-fated first attempt at higher education, which ended with a downward spiral into clinical depression and two months in the hospital.  The woman who is now my mother's partner met us at the airport.  On the drive home, the two of them sat up front and talked while I brooded in the backseat, listening to the radio.  The songs didn't particularly entertain me; they felt remote from this hour of failure and grief.  There was a long set of songs sung by male vocalists, and surely a female singer was long overdue.  I found myself hoping they would play "That's the Way It Is."  I knew it was unlikely, however; the song had been out for several months and was no longer in such frequent rotation that one could count on hearing it often.  Still, it was just what I needed: a cheerful song urging, "When you're ready to go and your heart's left in doubt / Don't give up on your faith."  As I stared glumly out the window at the familiar landscapes I had hoped to have left behind forever, I was astonished to hear the first notes of this song.  "Turn it up," I requested, and as I closed my eyes to focus on the vigorous tune and uplifting lyrics, I felt a kind of peace settle over me for the first time since . . . I couldn't remember.  Surely I had not been abadoned after all.  Such a little thing had been given to me, meeting such a huge and raw need.  Perhaps hope, like love, "comes to those who believe it . . . when life is empty with no tomorrow."

Once You Had Gold - Those who read my recent post about my first visit to Idyllwild in ten years will know that I have suffered some bitter disappointments in the past decade.  Sad to say, the response of those around me to my misfortunes was either to blame me for them entirely or to write me off as a lost cause.  This song does neither.  The haunting, crystalline melody rings with compassion; the singer seems to understand that sometimes, despite any amount of effort, a person must see his/her world swept away by "rains / Out of the blue."  This is no syrupy sympathy, however, but a gentle urging to carry on in hope, even in a world in which "darkness and dreams" are so often bound together.  This song reminds me that it's okay to feel my pain . . . and also that there is a "new day" beyond it.

People Are Strange - I loved this song even before I'd ever heard it.  One day, when I was in the hospital, I saw a fellow patient wearing a shirt that read "WHEN YOU'RE STRANGE, FACES COME OUT OF THE RAIN / WHEN YOU'RE STRANGE, NO ONE REMEMBERS YOUR NAME / WHEN YOU'RE STRANGE / WHEN YOU'RE STRANGE / WHEN YOU'RE STRANGE."  Intrigued, I committed the lines to memory immediately and wrote them later in my journal.  Years later, I discovered that they were the lyrics to a song.  Having lived all my life as an outcast in some form or another - the precocious toddler adults found disconcerting, the brainy little loner who embodied "does not play well with others," the troubled and apparently sexless adolescent, the young adult living under a barrage of diagnoses - I know what a cruel place the world is "when you're strange."  Rarely has the feeling of alienation been expressed so clearly and succintly as in this song - or with so little angst.

An Emotional Brain - "An emotional brain is a hard thing to tame / It just won't stay in its place / Every time I think I got it / It gives me another face / Happy, sad, disgusted, or mad / These are the things it shows / I keep trying to reign it / But it goes and it goes and it goes."  Being blessed as I am with a plethora of neurological and psychological disorders that affect the emotions, how could I not love a song like this?  (If you think your emotional brain is a hard thing to tame, try living with an abnormality of the limbic system.)  This cheery song about a sometimes merciless biological reality never fails to put a smile on my face.

Then Again - Of all the songs on this list, this is my most recent discovery.  Court Yard Hounds's eponymous album was the MP3 Album Deal of the Day a few weeks ago, and although I wasn't familiar with their music, I thought the promotional blurb sounded interesting and I decided to give them a try.  Well, this song alone would have been worth the four dollars I shelled out for the album.  Listening to the lyrics, I found myself wincing - and smiling - in recognition.  Having always found myself in the scapegoat role in my family, in a number of my friendships, in my one romantic partnership, I often "have bitten my tongue 'til I can taste the blood."  All my life I have wished I had more gumption, more aggressive drive, more of whatever it would take to keep those with fewer qualms and inhibitions from running roughshod over me.  It's hard to pick a single line or verse from this song that resonates with me most; listening to this song is like hearing my years of self-doubt, recrimination, and frustration given voice at last: "Just to keep the peace and quiet / I'd forfeit my peace of mind / Then again, I never did understand me."

I Am a Rock - It's scary how much I can relate to this song, how much I always have.  This is the anthem of the sensitive soul, unable to withstand the world's cruelties, cutting itself off from human closeness out of sheer survival instinct.  I have been there.  I have been so afraid of further hurt that I made myself harsh and cold, rejecting potential friends before they could have a chance to reject me.  I have sealed myself off from love or the hope of love, insisting that only pain and weakness could come from giving away any piece of myself, proclaiming that entire self-sufficiency was the only way to keep myself useful and intact.  "I've built walls / A fortress deep and mighty / That none may penetrate . . . I touch no one and no one touches me."  The narrator of the song, however, for all his bluster, retains a telling streak of vulnerability.  He may be safe, but he isn't really happy.  "A rock feels no pain / And an island never cries," he sighs in the end, over the tender notes of a guitar humming like a series of gentle sobs.  I have, for the most part, put this way of thinking behind me, daring to reach out to others in love and friendship, accepting the risk of pain in the pursuit of something profound and sweet.  Yet when I feel threatened or hurt, the walls go right back up again, and I push away the ones I love just when I need them the most.  Being able to recognize, accept, and articulate that I do this has been a huge step for me; I don't know if it's a tendency I shall ever be able to overcome entirely.

I Made It Through the Rain - This might be the first song that I ever thought of as a personal anthem, and two decades later, it's still inspiring and consoling me.  I was no more than seven or eight when my mother told me this song always reminded her of me.  She knew I was a lonely outcast, that I had no friends at school or in the neighborhood, that I never quite seemed to fit in anywhere.  She thought of me as one of those special people who would "come shining through those lonely years."  Listening to the song again with myself in mind, I resolved that I would make it through the rain.  For the first time, I understood that I wasn't alone in my struggle.  Well, I was alone for now, of course, but there were others out there with a similar burden, and one day we would find each other, and I would be "respected / By the others who / Got rained on too / And made it through."  I believed, as never before, that there might be an end to the struggle that I was living, that joy might come in the morning.  I have never forgotten that promise, and I have "kept my world protected" ever since.

Because You Loved Me - I would not be who I am if not for the many wonderful people who have made a positive difference in my life.  Some have been there from the beginning; some I knew for only a few years, or months, or days.  Some were family, some were friends, some were acquaintances; some had Ph.D.'s, some were profoundly mentally ill, some weren't technically people at all.  The one thing they all had in common was the time and care they put into me.  Without them, I would not be what I am, where I am, or who I am.  No list of songs that claims to represent my essence would be complete without some tribute to them.  "You were my eyes when I couldn't see," dear ones.  "You saw the best there was in me," and thanks to you, I see it too.

Somewhere - This is another one that became dear to me early in my life.  I grew up always wondering what it felt like to belong.  In my family, in the neighborhood, at school, even at church, I was always the one who just didn't fit in.  I was a foreigner, an alien, a stranger in a strange land.  I had to close my mouth and conceal my most piercing fears, my most poignant loves, my most private truths, as I had learned early on that the reactions of others to my feral and pensive inner world ranged from inappropriate amusement to horrified disgust.  Still, as I struggled to conform on the surface, I never ceased to cherish a dream that I would one day have a place to come home to in my heart, among people of my own kind.  I dreamed of "a new way of living," one in which I would not be shamed for my emotional nature, my intensity, or the darkness in my soul that I have never denied, my intimacy with things painful and perverse.  I have denied and tried to suppress my need to belong, but the hope of finding "my people" - "somehow, someday, somewhere" - has never died in me.

King of Pain - Perhaps I internalized my role as the family scapegoat a little too well.  Perhaps I was simply blessed, and cursed, with an extraordinary degree of empathy.  At any rate, I have always had the tendency to absorb the emotions of those around me and take them to heart.  I know what it's like to have "the world turning circles running 'round my brain," the sufferings of humanity and all sentient beings and yes, even the indignities visited by this brutal existence on inanimate objects.  I have often wished I could take all the suffering, especially of my loved ones, onto myself, to spare them.  Perhaps, after my long years of emotional abuse and clinical depression, I almost believe I am strong enough and sufficiently practiced in the art of endurance to take on the weight of the world.  Sometimes in my mind I see myself gathering up sorrows like burning coals, filling my arms with them, then running down to the river and plunging in, losing myself but quenching the fire that would have done so much damage.  This song encapsulates my experience of seeing myself reflected in all the world's suffering, and taking a sort of pride in my portion, "my destiny to be the king of pain."

The Bottom Line - This song describes, better than any other, my experience of love.  Loving another person is a deeply spiritual experience for me, a compulsion that runs over me like a magnet over metal, realigning my particles on the atomic level.  "The apple falls / Destiny calls . . . I feel love's wheels turning," and I am changed, diverted, given.  I no longer know where my own footsteps are taking me; I only know that I am willing to go, whatever may be at the end of the road.  It feels profound and natural, inevitable, like a flower turning its face toward the sun, or a river building itself up over the miles to lose itself in the sea.  Sometimes it is ecstasy; sometimes it is torture; but at all times it is right, the only thing I could possibly do.  I don't think I could ever describe the experience as vividly as this song does, though I could happily spend my whole life trying.

Burn - This is another newly discovered favorite.  To me, this song embodies what I believe love can become at its finest: encompassing, supportive, and complete.  The narrator is willing to offer the one she loves her encouragement and assistance in anything he might wish to accomplish, asking only that she see in the end that her devotion has borne fruit in his life.  The song includes one of the most vibrant and intriguing metaphors I have ever seen: "I'll lay down on your bed of coals / Offer up my heart and soul / But in return / I want you to burn . . . for me."  Nothing great is possible without sacrifice, and the narrator of this song offers all that she is for the purpose of seeing the one she loves become what she knows he has within him to be.

Sometimes When We Touch - What is it with me and passionate dissonance?  If "We Belong" is the song I'd love to dedicate to the love of my life, "Sometimes When We Touch" is the song I like to imagine him dedicating to me.  Of course, there is conflict and ambiguity inherent in knowing and loving another person completely.  Past the initial rosy stage of infatuation, one becomes aware of the beloved's faults and flaws, and it's only natural to feel a little disillusioned, as if that idealized image had somehow been a lie.  This can be the moment that makes or breaks a relationship.  To accept a person completely - to love a person completely - means to embrace their flaws and their scars and their contradictions.  Only by hanging on through times of conflict and doubt can one come to know another person so honestly that a simple touch can leave him feeling utterly revealed and exposed.  This is how I want to love and be loved: seeing and seen without flinching, knowing and known to a depth ever more profound.  Perhaps this is too much to ask.  But this is love, as I understand it.  Also, the narrator's apparent integrity and touching vulnerability just melt my heart.

Strong Enough - Ah, another unrefreshingly complicated love song.  I'm beginning to embarrass myself here!  Why can't I have just one song with dopey, sappy lyrics about how I love you and you love me and everything's just so wonderfully perfect?  Because I'm too damn difficult, that's why.  I am intense and moody and perverse and I think too much.  These are not criticisms of myself, but facts that are a part of my nature.  Like the woman in this song, I push people away when I need them the most: "I'd be the last to help you understand . . . let me be alone tonight / 'Cause you can't change the way I am."  I need someone strong enough to bear with me and break through my defenses when the storms raging inside my mind get to be too much.  I need someone who will wrestle through with me to the other side, when my solid and sensible self takes up residence in my mind again.  Whoever would love me must be up to the challenge of reckoning with all of me, which is a lot to ask of anyone.  I didn't choose to be so complicated, but I am, and I have never been easy to love.  And there you have it.

The Music of the Night - If I had to choose just one theme song for myself, this would be it.  Everything I know and love and believe is in this song.  This is the music I hear inside of my head when I'm not listening to anything else.