The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus: “Grimm 2.0”
We read the book “The Love Dare” and watched “Fireproof,” the movie based on the book. Supposedly, we had fireproofed our marriage. I thought we were safe from divorce. A few months before asking for separation, she had told me she’d never leave me. Then it happened and I was stunned. The lyric “Throw me away at your leisure” encapsulated how I felt about the situation. Wasn’t I supposed to have a say in the matter? Well, no, I didn’t. My only option was what this song suggested, “I will do my best to try and sort this out, It can't get any worse, than what I've felt.”
Tyler Carter: “Leave Your Love”
I’m unsure if Carter wrote this chorus as an indictment to his ex or advice to himself, however I interpreted it as the latter. Or at least, I took it as personal instruction. She wanted out, what else was I to do? This was the only thing that made sense. “Leave your love at the door, Leave your heart on the floor, And if you leave your heart on the floor, Leave your tears let em' pour.”
Mutemath: “Used To”
At the end of a failing marriage, there is an ample collection of bad memories. It’s easy to dwell on the arguments and painful conversations, missed opportunities and unmet expectations, and of the garbage piled up leading to the moment of divorce. Yet somehow, you must reconcile those tragic images in your mind with the more pleasant memories. “I still recall a time you were on my mind, monopolizing each and every second.” There was a reason Bekah and I got married as much as there was a reason we got divorced. After the end, there are both good memories along with and sometimes tangled into the bad.
Cold War Kids: “Bitter Poem”
In a down-tempo tune, Cold War Kids speak of a lesson we all need to learn, “you often find the best laid plans will fall down broken all around you.” As divorced loomed around me, my best laid plan of ‘til death do we part was falling down and broken. I struggled to understand how and why we ended and found myself asking the same questions as the Cold War Kids, “Is it chemical imbalance or some other struggle? Nobody's to blame, can't use force. Take me to court, ‘cause I couldn't love you? Nobody could use you if you want. Ain't it fun?”
Eels: “That Look You Give That Guy”
Between my melancholic disposition and self deprecating sense of humor, it’s always been easy to relate to music from Eels. Words like “I'm nothing like what I'd like to be, I'm nothing much, I know it's true, I lack the style and the pedigree and my chances are so few” speak the core of how I often see myself. Then, on the eve of separation, Bekah told me there was a boy in one of her classes at LCSC, some 18 year old fresh out of high school, who frequently complimented her. She added a zinger – that his compliments made her feel better about herself than anything I had ever told her. Suddenly this song about other people’s someone else took on another meaning for me. “I see you with your man, your eyes just shine while he stands tall and walkin’ proud.”
Splender: “Yeah, Whatever”
Navigating former relationships is complicated. Just ask Waymon Boone of Splender. In song, he told his ex “you’re primitive,” and “you’re cynical to me.” In case his feelings were unclear, he added a bit more, “you’re paranoid as you look me up and down.” I have worked hard to avoid feelings of animosity toward Bekah. It hasn’t been easy and I have not always been successful. Yet I try. Still, I get where Boone is coming from because primitive, cynical, and paranoid could have been adjectives I used to describe the way she treated me. When she told me she was moving forward with divorce, she told me that this was the only way and perhaps someday, we could be friends. Seven years later, it seems like we’ve figured out how to be friends. But back then I believed our fate would be more like this song. “We don't have to stay friends, let's pretend to be enemies.”
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