When As I Am came out, once I got a hold of it, I played it endlessly. As I do with every album I decide I love. until I get sick of it. until exhaustion. Seeing Alicia Keys’ new video for “Superwoman,” I was reminded how much I love the album–her best, in my opinion, albeit her least organic. Less piano stuff, you know? I really liked the piano stuff. There is a manufactured quality to it. It’s tough…I really love the first album, Songs in A Minor. That was my joint during one of my well-f*ck-that-dude phases. But this As I Am is, like Darius said, urgent like a motherf*cker. despite some cheesy penmanship.

While satisfying my Keys jones on the way to work thursday morning, I came to this point on the album again, on “Lesson Learned,” a song I love, love:

A life perfect ain’t perfect if you don’t know what the struggle’s for
Fallin’ down ain’t fallin’ down if you don’t cry when you hit the floor
It’s called the past ’cause I’m getting past and I ain’t nothing like I was before…
You oughtta see me now…

The first time I heard that last part, I hit pause, rewind, play, repeat. “You oughtta see me now…” I mean, you have to hear it. the way she says it. with this certain sort of certainty and pride. I feel her. When you’re young, you think you’ll never change, can’t imagine any other existence. Sometimes you vow not to change for anyone, when really it’s not other people you need to change for. Maybe at the core you’re the same, but other things just… it’s hard to be the same person you were even a year ago. Anyway, what she’s saying—that people will break your heart and that you’ll learn and that you’ll change and that they oughtta see—I feel that.

I played this album, that song, loudly and continuously in my office (you can do that where I work) and me and my cubicle sister both loved this part as well. gave it that mmhmm:

Sometimes, some lies
Can take a minute to fully realize
His tears
Your eyes
Thirty seconds to apologize
You give it one more chance
Just like the time before
But he already knows
You’ll give 100 more
Until that night in bed
You’ll wake up in a sweat
You’re racing to the door
Can’t take it anymore

But that’s another story…