the food of love

I heard a lyric last night: “Your blood is in my heart.”

It seems strange that I haven’t heard that lyric a thousand times before. There are some that we hear over and over again in songs. “Her hand in mine.” “I still smell her.” “And I was his.” These lyrics that now sound like bad poetry, that when we read about in other people’s words or songs, we think that they haven’t really loved. If they’re using words we’ve all heard a million times before to describe their emotions, then they’re just feeling what they think is supposed to be love.

Love doesn’t really ever have the right words. It’s not simple. It doesn’t even have rules. It’s the same with good music. You can’t tell someone why you love the music you love. You can’t say, “Right here. This note. This is my favorite note.” It’s not one particular song. When you hear that music, the notes that get you right where it aches and is still a bit tender– that’s love. It’s personal and yours and nobody else can ever re-create it.

And you fall in love more than once. Every time is different. Each time you think you’re redefining love. But it’s just like a list of all of your favorite bands. One couldn’t replace the other. Each band has memories and emotions and a time in your life and their words are familiar in your body and in your heart.

I can’t believe “Your blood is in my heart” hasn’t been used a million times before. It sounds like something that should already be overused.

These albums have tiny love affairs with me. Each one is incredibly different and shows all the different ways you love. You love these albums like the boys you love, like the women you love, like the family you love. You’re protective and you remember everything. You want to remember every note, every word, every sound, every time you listened. Sometimes you just listen over and over, driving everyone else you know crazy. But you don’t care. Only you understand. You have a connection with the music and it’s personal and you want everyone else to stay out of it. You don’t want other people to know the words to the songs. You don’t want to hear them say that the words mean so much to them. They only matter to you. You’re the only one who knows what those songs really mean. You’re so protective that you might even start hating a band once everyone starts to like them. Because it tarnishes your love. Cheapens it. Makes what you had seem less important.

Weezer and I have late-night make out sessions after drinking too many wine coolers and eating Fun Dip. We’ve got red Kool-Aid moustaches and we’re giggling and there’s spit all over the place and we don’t care because we’re hyper and having a great time. We laugh until we can’t breathe and then we dance until we scare everyone else. When we’re together, it’s like we’re very young children just discovering each other.

Radiohead and I have a moody, incredibly rocky relationship. We’ll be depressed when we’re apart and miserable when we’re together. We can’t get out of each other’s systems, but the more we’re together, the more we ache. We have incredibly long, slow sex that causes us to both tear up and pull at each other’s skin. We hold onto each other because we don’t know where else to go. We’re desperate for each other because we’re terrified of being alone. Late at night we hold each other in the dark because we’re both afraid to go to sleep. We’re terrified the other will be gone in the morning.

In the morning we eat our eggs in silence, never telling each other anything real.

Jane’s Addiction was fun. I don’t remember much. I remember one night we drove out as far as we could before we were really really lost and we sang the entire drive back because the radio in my car was out. Jane’s Addiction had a great way of putting an arm around my waist. I miss that.

Sting was boring. I bought into all that poetry and then underneath the words there was nothing. There was nothing to talk about except how pretty he was and how much he felt about everything. But dammit if he couldn’t write me love letters that I still keep and pretend were written by someone else.

No Doubt was during my rebound period when I just needed someone who was as angry as I was. We both just sorta came together at the same time and didn’t really think about each other. We weren’t hurt, and we weren’t being malicious. We just needed to blow off some steam together. We’re still good friends. No Doubt is in a pretty happy relationship right now, actually. I’m not upset about it at all. Although, the band it’s seeing is sort of a douche.

I’ll never have fun again like I do with the Beastie Boys. They’re my on-again/ off-again fling relationship. They know how to cheer up any shitty mood I’m in, so we hang out every once in a while when we’re down in the dumps. The Beastie Boys kiss until all you feel are the nerve endings in your body shooting around, bouncing off each other, making you blush and your fingers are a bit numb and you’re out of breath even though you were only standing still. The Beastie Boys give head for hours. They rule.

Rage Against The Machine have some issues. But they always know cool places to hang out. They act out and make you laugh. They’re good at making you feel like the most important person in the room. It’s the temper thing, though. Sometimes you’re not ready to get all of the attention.

The Beatles are a love affair that will never die. It’s soft and calm and waiting. It’s always there for you. The Beatles know that I sometimes go away and try new things and they never think that I don’t love them. Because I always always love them. And I know they love me. The songs are in my blood. They’re part of my body’s rhythm. I hear them singing when I don’t have music playing. Their lyrics are in my writing. I feel the things they sing about. I know them like they know me. It’s been going on forever and it’ll never stop and there’s something incredibly comforting in that love. I can always come home to the Beatles.

Ella Fitzgerald and I tongue kiss and then she shoots me up with some heroin because I get too emotional.

Otis Redding stalks me and I won’t let him in because I’m afraid he’ll stop singing.

I think that Destiny’s Child is a bad influence for me. When I’m with them, I’m a bit of a brat. I guess it’s good to just act out and be a child every once in a while in the privacy of your own home, but I think in public I end up looking like an asshole. Destiny’s Child is more my secret love now, because whenever I try and get someone else involved they look like they’re in hell. I think when I break up with Destiny’s Child, everyone is going to tell me that they never liked them anyway and always wanted us to break up.

There will never be a better kisser than LL Cool J. I said God DAMN, people. He holds your wrist and also has his other hand right on the side of your breast and you’re bent backwards in that good way where your bodies curve into each other and you’re sucking each other’s lips and your teeth are gliding just a bit on each other and you’re panting into each other’s mouths and it’s hot and he’s in control and he lets you have control and then he takes it again and your knees will never work the same again after that.

He makes my body move in all the right places. He gets inside me and I’m very happy each and every time he does. We had a fight once because “I Need Love” is the worst song ever written, but by the time he starts grooving “Doin’ It,” I’ve completely forgiven him. Unh. I love me some LL.

Toad the Wet Sprocket and I had an embarrassingly open and sappy love affair that made everyone else sick. It probably wasn’t healthy at all since we only saw each other for about a year and didn’t let anyone else in and we absorbed each other and told each other everything and then had a very open and ugly break-up where people were hurt and said terrible things about us. I still look back fondly at Toad because we were co-dependent like that. We forgive each other for everything because we’re weak.

Hole has nasty, dirty sex with me and then never calls me back. For some reason, I just keep calling until I get to see it again. It’s terrible. It’s wrong. I love it.

I suppose we’re all looking for the song that describes everything we’re going through just perfectly. Thank God there isn’t one just yet. Because I really don’t want to stop looking. I like having different songs and different voices and different albums for the different times in my life. I like that I’m changing and music’s changing and every once in a while you get a perfect moment where everything clicks. That’s what’s wonderful about love. Every once in a while there’s a moment where everything is right. You look at each other and you smile at the same time and there’s a quickening in your throat and a feeling of everything quieting down around you. The world stops. It’s just the two of you. And sometimes you let the song playing in the background be a part of it. As long as it’s perfect.