There’s a million love songs dispersed into the ether. Songs about first love, an all-consuming love, unrequited love. Break-ups that ended bitterly and premature break-ups that never got to see their full potential. The universal experience can feel so intimately particular for each person. There will never be a shortage on the topic.
Some of the greatest love songs allow you to insert your experience into them like they were written just for you.
If you’re familiar with the heavy films and books I gravitate to, it won’t come as a surprise that I most often reach for songs about lost love. I fill my ears with sentimental tales of the one that got away and relationships that quietly ran its course. It’s safe to say I like to break my own heart.
Anyone can muster up sweet declarations while they’re in the midst of love. I’m far more interested in what someone says after. I want to know people’s reflections when enough time has passed and they can see the relationship with clarity. When any lingering resentment is replaced with affection. It poses the question, why do some relationships carry nostalgia and others don’t?
When I’m feeling introspective (which is all the time), I like to throw on a Sad Girl playlist.
The post-love ballad I wish more people knew is from an artist that may also need an introduction. Colin Hay, is a Scottish-Aussie singer/songwriter and guitarist. Originally the lead vocalist of the 80’s band Men at Work, he broke out into a solo career throughout the 90’s. In the early 2000’s, he was introduced to a newer fanbase after being regularly featured in the lovable sitcom, Scrubs. He’s currently pushing 70 and is still touring and making audiences laugh and hang onto every word.
A month before the pandemic, I watched Colin play at a small historic theater. It could’ve been the last concert I ever went to and that would’ve been okay. I took myself out to dinner and an evening stroll before finding my seat sandwiched between strangers. The entire night felt as though we were hanging out in someone’s living room. It was intimate and casual, a comfortable gathering of old friends that ended prematurely. I attended the show alone but I wasn’t lonely.
Do yourself a favor and listen to “I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You.” It’s a wistful story of a man who recounts a past relationship. She’s fondly preserved in his memory when he’s doing simple things like drinking his morning coffee. ”Without you here, there is less to say.” He transforms a simple sentence into a heartfelt confession. After losing someone, the most mundane things can be what you end up missing the most. You’re left wondering where your thoughts and jokes go now? So much gets left unsaid.
Hay’s comforting voice carries a richness in life experience. I imagine the subject of the song wasn’t a first or last kind of love. Regardless of the years that passed, this person has reserved a room in his heart. It’s not explicit whether things ended due to a breakup or if they passed away. Somehow the open interpretation makes it more poignant.
The stripped down acoustics lends itself to the melancholy lyrics. Every note and every word is placed thoughtfully. No component competes with the other. Part of the emotional effectiveness comes from it being a quiet song, almost a whisper.
The most romantic lyric comes at the end of the chorus, “I knew that if I lived till I could no longer climb my stairs, I just don’t think I’ll ever get over you.”
Not enough love stories talk about the absence after losing a loved one later in life. I’m not talking about the emotionally-charged weeks or months after a tearful goodbye. Rather the hole left in your heart after years or decades, even after you’ve found little touches of love. The ghost of their presence never fully leaves you when you’ve built routines around each other and watched a lover’s wrinkles etch deeper along their laugh lines. Maybe this relationship didn’t make it far enough along for that to happen, but I like to think it did.
For other Colin Hay should-be-classics, check out:
- My Brilliant Feat
- Man Without a Name
- Overkill
- Waiting for My Real Life to Begin
- Norwegian Wood (Beatles Cover)
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