Good Night for Whiskey

Every January, I have this thing (call it neurosis, call it perfectionism, call it compulsion, call it spring cleaning) where I have to listen to all of the songs in my iTunes library.  And every year, of course, it gets a bit more difficult because I obtain so many more new songs over the course of a year that my library gets more and more full.  January is, in short, the month I go deaf.  This year, I have 4994 songs over which to go deaf, and so far I'm a little over halfway through.  I'm hoping to get it done before the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, which is on 7 February.  Fingers crossed!

Something I really like about this whole bizarre enterprise of mine is that, every year, I fall in love (again, or sometimes perhaps for the first time) with a different album, and it's almost as though I'm rediscovering it again.  It's a very nice feeling.

But, of course, sometimes it isn't.  Because I just...I feel too much, and it gets me into trouble.

And there's a line in this song that's at the heart of everything I've ever felt.  Well, there are two lines that are particularly apt, but one is more fact, whereas the one I'm talking about is a poetic observation of a fundamental truth that is at the core of all of my heartache over the years.  I'll let you know which one it is...after the song.

Good Night for Whiskey

tonight is a good night for whiskey
'cause I'm betting he don't even miss me
and the makeup on my face feels like I'm trying too hard
to cover up the fact that I've got a forgotten heart
and I don't think I know how to smile anymore

tonight is a good night for whiskey
'cause I've been drowning in a lifetime of lonely
and right now it feels like there ain't nothing else in store
than dying and crying and all the wrong sides of closed doors
and I don't think I want to make another start

CHORUS:
so burn me, break me, tease me, chill me
and maybe all this emptiness will fill me up
dance with me, trip me up, make me unrecognisable tonight
take me out of my skin and maybe tomorrow
I can face it when a new day begins

but tonight is a good night for whiskey
'cause I need to forget these old foolish dreams
and hope is the hardest thing for a lonely heart to bear
whose worst mistake was taking too much time to stare
still I've never called anyone mine

tonight is a good night for whiskey
'cause it'll turn today into hist'ry
and I've made a fool of myself enough for a lifetime
just for being myself for a moment in time
and nothing about this is fair

CHORUS:
so burn me, break me, tease me, kill me
and maybe all this emptiness will fill me up
dance with me, trip me up, make me unrecognisable
'cause I wanna be someone else, someone beautiful tonight
take me out of my skin and maybe tomorrow
I can face it when a new day begins

BRIDGE:
but somehow I doubt I'll get over him like that
it might be easier to turn my heart cold and black
and my life could be a good life for whiskey
so I might get over how much he don't miss me

and burn me, break me, tease me, kill me
and maybe all this emptiness will fill me up
dance with me, trip me up, make me unrecognisable
'cause I wanna be someone else, someone beautiful tonight
take me out of my skin and maybe tomorrow
I can face it when a new day begins

take me out of my skin and maybe tomorrow
I won't remember how much this night stings...

Oh, the irony.  Goddamn the irony.

First things first: I realise it's not my best song.  And it's not (really) meant to be.  It's kind of wordy, and maybe a bit fuzzy, and it's perhaps a little too angst-y.  But (a) I don't want to go back and rewrite it, because the melody (the one I hear and you can't, sorry) is really nice and the words fit to it nicely, and (b) the individual lines are what make it what it is, I think, because they're stronger than is the song as a whole.

As such, I won't analyse it too much.  There's, actually, not too much to analyse.  I threw it together, really, with lines that all made sense to me, because I've felt, and I feel them all.

The one line in this song that just kills me is hope is the hardest thing for a lonely heart to bear.  And I should qualify that: it's fruitless hope that's the hardest thing, the hope you just know will never turn out to happen, because it only throws into sharper relief the loneliness of that lonely heart, and dashes its hopes of ever getting out of that.  And I know the song isn't the perfect carrier for the line, but it settled into my heart like a truth that has been there for years but has never quite been named.  Because that's what it is.

And it's a truth that makes me want to drink until I can't feel anything anymore.  (But I don't drink, so I just feel, if not weather, the pain and write songs about it.)  Hence, this song.  It doesn't mean much, other than the song is the me I wish I weren't.   The me I wish I didn't have to be.

Also, I think the chorus is addressing the whiskey.  Those are all directives for the alcohol.

Much love, and thank you for the musik,

Just Another Ordinary Girl

Now I'm all messed up, wondering...whose life you're making worthwhile.