At some point not too long after we met, but after we knew we were falling ass over teakettle in love, Tom and I were driving in his car to dinner. We had just experienced the perfect day together, including some humbling golf, and it was just one of those days when you know, you know? I looked over at him and I knew that no matter what, I was going to be nuts about this guy until the end. Nuts in a good way, not the stalking version, FYI...
He turned on the CD player in the car and a song I wasn't familiar with began to play. Tom suddenly told me, "this is our song."
"Huh? What? We have a song? Why didn't you tell me? Who is it? What's it about? Cool!"
"It's just that every time I hear this song, I think about you, and so I sort of consider it our song," he said. He looked a little sheepish. My heart did a major pitter-patter and I took his hand, started the song over again, and listened to the words.
Any of you know this one? It's called "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" by Deathcab for Cutie. Here is a sampling of some of the lyrics:
Love of mine some day you will die
But I'll be close behind
I'll follow you into the dark
No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white
Just our hands clasped so tight
Waiting for the hint of a spark
If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs
If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark
Hmm, I thought to myself. So basically, Tom is telling me I am going to die someday (and it sounds like it's going to happen pretty soon), I'll probably be alone when it happens (when I shit the bed, as it were), that neither heaven nor hell will be willing or able to provide me with accomodations, that as a result I will spend the hereafter in some sort of purgatory called "the dark," and that if this happens, he will commit suicide to join me in this place called the dark, where things are probably pretty boring and I am guessing chilly.
He gets cold easilly, so that's a pretty big deal. I was moved, really, but it seemed a little morbid for a couple who just fell in love. It's sort of what you would expect Wednesday Addams to have played for the first dance at her wedding to Dracula.
Come to think of it, we did have that song played at our wedding.
Better that song than "Love and Marriage," sung by Frank Sinatra. On the surface, it seems like sort of a nice song, right? The very basic meaning upon first blush is that love and marriage go together, and that's just a wonderful thing! Then again, have you ever wondered why it was used in the opening credits for the show "Married with Children?"
Love and marriage
love and marriage
go together like a horse and carriage
this I tell you brother
you can't have one without the other.
OK, first of all, I agree completely that love and marriage "go together." They are supposed to, anyway, and hopefully for most of you that is your experience. I don't buy for a second that you can't have one without the other, because we all know married people who don't really love each other and most of us have been in love prior to marriage. Or after it. Or in high school, which doesn't really count.
The part that gets me in the song is that love and marriage go together "like a horse and carriage." That's a really good deal for the carriage, which can't do anything on its own but just sit there, but what about the horse? Here you have a perfectly good horse, roaming around his or her field and sniffing out the local action, and the next thing you know, he or she is getting "hitched" - chained up and expected to haul around this carriage that can't do shit without the horse and which keeps insisting on filling up with passengers and assorted stuff that is heavy. The horse has no say over what is put in the carriage, all he can do is whinny for a carrot once in a while and hope he gets lucky.
"I didn't sign up for this."
Love and marriage
love and marriage
it's an institute you can't disparage
ask the local gentry
and they will say it's elementary!
Marriage isn't for everyone, so if I feel like disparaging it I will go right ahead and do just that. I think a lot of smart people have made a pretty good case against the institution of marriage (including Mae West, who noted that marriage was a great institituion, but she wasn't ready for an institution just yet). Personally, I think that when you have a really great match between two people, it can work (wow - isn't that both insightful and inspirational?).
But what does the local gentry know about it, anyway? Aren't they busy counting their money and zipping to and fro in their expensive, gilded carriages? And serving tea?
And that reminds me, I will leave you with a picture I took outside Phil's Meat Market in Uptown last week. Dude in a skirt. I love this town.
2 comments:
Makes sense to me, but I think "le Cruset" is too many syllables for a pithy expression. A possible alternative is "the ocean calling the lake wet". But isn't your point that the person in question is unconscious of their own behavior and is projecting their defects onto the rest of the world? When I was practicing law, I knew lawyers who adopted the role of a brave crusader, acting in their client's best interest. In some cases, they were just semi-sociopaths who used the process of litigation as a socially sanctioned way to take out their own self-loathing on the rest of the world. I'm sure other examples abound in other professions, but lawyers are particularly susceptible to confuse their own dark side with their duty to act on behalf of their clients. Go figure.
Ah, but you see, the ocean calling the lake wet is just like the pot calling the kettle black (assuming they are both black, of course). Using your ocean idea, it would be the ocean calling the desert wet. Still, not very pithy. Thounds like I'm thaying pissy with a lisp.
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