The first time I heard Mary J. Blige’s “Just Fine” I chuckled at her newfound happiness. It seemed sort of disease-ish. “I’m fine fine fine fine fine fine, woooo!” Like, wow, she’s really happy? Skepticism later turned into awe. Wow, she’s really happy... “Gonna live my life, feels so good to get it right.” I had to be, also, for her.
This is just for Jay-Z’s wow verse. he was letting me down lately but thanks Hov. dope. or maybe it’s just me…
“Go Hard Remix”
I drown my pain in Porsches
I lost my partner to the bullshit
Still tryna hold on to my religious soul,
I put a couple diamonds in the corpses
close your eyes, see the darkness
thats what it’s like where I’m from
No lawyers, no doctors
So either I go the hardest or I could just call this a night
on dark nights it’s like I see better,
On Dark Knights, I’m like Heath Ledger
Casablanca and I met for the first time, as I became acquainted with its classic lines and this, one of the most well known scenes in film between Rick and his love Ilsa and part of why it’s considered the best love story of all time.
Ilsa: You’re saying this only to make me go.
Rick: I’m saying it because it’s true. Inside of us, we both know you belong with Victor. You’re part of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If that plane leaves the ground and you’re not with him, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.
Ilsa: But what about us?
Rick: We’ll always have Paris. We didn’t have it. We lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.
Ilsa: But I said I would never leave you.
Rick: And you never will. But I’ve got a job to do, too. Where I’m going, you can’t follow. What I’ve got to do, you can’t be any part of. Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that. Now, now… Here’s looking at you kid.
Sometimes I feel
like I don’t belong anywhere
and it’s gonna take so long
for me to get somewhere
sometimes I feel so heavy hearted
but I can’t explain, cause I’m so guarded
but that’s a lonely road to travel
and a heavy load to bear
Not totally feeling Kanye’s newfound autotune croon fest. my mind may change after hearing the songs in album context. this bonus track on his previous album Graduation, however, I kinda love. Mos Def is singing. “Goodnight”
What do it mean when you dream that you fallin’
What do it mean when you dream that you ballin’
What do it mean when you never dream at all then
And you don’t really know ’cause you can’t recall them
It’s sorta fly you get a chance to say hi to
People you never got a chance to say bye to
Maybe you could pull em up outta your dreams
Into real life, if you try to
So close, but so far
And so far, no cigar
We can’t dwell on the day past all we got is today
So I’mma live like there’s no tomorrow
No goodbye
disclaimer: I’m not depressed, don’t email me
This New York Mag article from this week’s issue is about author David Foster Wallace. It doesn’t mention his suicide until the end of the story, but as a reader you’re able to (should) pick up on it if you hadn’t learned of the news elsewhere. The final graf (excerpted below) struck me because it goes against what I normally make myself believe, which is–to make a long theory short–that everything will be alright. Naive, yes, but even amid my general pessimism I like to believe that the best always emerges from the worst and that there’s always a way out. But happiness, it turns out, is relative.
I remember doing an interview with The Game, the rapper, who was experiencing a bit of depression at the time (whether you want to believe him or not is up to you). I told him the pain goes away. It has to. He hit me with, “What about the people it never goes away for?” My naivete smacked me like Ike. I’m young. I don’t know everything, so my interviews with artists are sometimes lessons for myself as well. And conversations, I hope. I realized there are people who find the worst way to make “it” go away.
“So here is the miserable truth that those of us who are given to depression are forced to face when David Foster Wallace commits suicide: It didn’t and doesn’t turn out well. There is no happy ending to the story of sorrow if you are born with a predilection for despair. The world is, after all, a coarse and brutal and cruel place. It’s only a matter of how long you can live with it.” (Beyond the Trouble, More Trouble, by Elizabeth Wurtzel)
Minus 50. originally Ron Isley but I don’t have that record
“Cruising Music”
…makes me feel fine. But for only a few more weeks
“Summer Breeze”
He said he didn’t know if this was right. If we were right. He had to leave to make sure. But I knew he wasn’t coming back. It was a mutual thing…the we’re-not-right thing. We’d become comfortable. But the decision, that was his. I had only threatened. So he said we both should leave to make sure. I agreed. All I could say was, “It’s like that Donell Jones song, right?”
“Where I Wanna Be”
I’m not saying I’m gone, but I
have to find what life is like…
Mr. Writer. From what I heard, I love this album already. Sept. 16
“So You Can Cry”
you sit in the dark alone
and wont answer your phone
well im sorry, I won’t attend your pity party
I’d rather go have calamari
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…
