Song: “Fistful of Love”

The most bizarre thing I’ve ever caught on Letterman is now what haunts my iPod.

We couldn’t stop watching it, this man at the piano singing a warbly song about how much he loves his sister. It was like I had somehow found a magic television, one that could bring back Divine and make her a lounge act. I had to know more. Who was this man, and where were the Johnsons?

The entire album, when listened to all at once, makes you want to put on a corset, pull it until it makes your kidneys pop, and then slit your wrists all the way up to your ears. It feels like your stomach after you find the love letter your crazy ex-girlfriend wrote and hid between your mattresses knowing you’d find it after she called you up at three in the morning because she “can’t remember” if she just downed her bottle of Prozac, so could you please just talk to her for a little while? This is music that haunts, just behind your right shoulder, making you feel like someone’s there (someone who can’t be there, couldn’t be there), just outside of your peripheral vision, sighing a heavy sigh because you aren’t doing something you’re supposed to be doing right now. It is the sound of being lost, of missing out, of searching for the words to say, “I’m sorry, I love you, and I’m sorry that I love you.”