please stay for a while

Hey where did we go,
Days when the rains came
Down in the hollow,
Playin’ a new game,
Laughing and a running hey, hey
Skipping and a jumping
In the misty morning fog with
Our hearts a thumpin’ and you
My brown eyed girl,
You my brown eyed girl.

So hard to find my way,
Now that I’m all on my own.
I saw you just the other day,
My how you have grown,
Cast my memory back there, Lord
Sometime I’m overcome thinking ’bout
Making love in the green grass
Behind the stadium with you
My brown eyed girl
You my brown eyed girl

- Van Morrison, “Brown-Eyed Girl”

I had a whole long draft typed up, about everything I am feeling this last weekend before leaving York, with all my stuff in boxes and bags once again, but somehow it never reached a stage where I felt it could be published. All the words just seemed so useless; no matter how much I wrote and rewrote whole sentences, paragraphs, I simply couldn’t - still can’t - really, really put across how I feel. So much has happened so quickly over the past two weeks.

And then “Brown-Eyed Girl” came on the radio and I thought, this is it. This is how I feel.

Do you remember when we used to sing
Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da.

Do you remember? I hope I never forget.

i said, babe, you’re not lost

Now and then a particular song among my thousands really jumps out and speaks to me, and today it is this deceptively simple one, which I never realised was so beautiful until I heard Michael Buble sing it with the lights dimmed, video off, and eyes closed in Manchester last year.

*

Maybe I didn’t treat you
Quite as good as I should have
Maybe I didn’t love you
Quite as often as I could have
Little things I should have said and done
I just never took the time

Little things I should have said and done
I just never took the time
You were always on my mind
You are always on my mind
You are always on my mind

i am the heart that you call home

And if you don’t love me let me go
And if you don’t love me let me go
- The Decemberists, “The Engine Driver”

If you love me, won’t you let me know?
- Coldplay, “Violet Hill”

I knew these lyrics from Coldplay’s “Violet Hill” (a song I’ve been hearing a lot on the radio and playing a lot on my computer) sounded incredibly familiar, and it dawned on me the other day when a Decemberists song came on on my iPod. It’s not the same meaning, and not quite the same beat - Coldplay’s a lot more thumpy, as you might expect - but the two lines, when you listen to them, sound similar enough to warrant a bit of a doubletake.

And probably because I’ve been doing quite a bit of work on meaning and inversions of meaning, lexically speaking, the odd resonance of these lines really stuck with me. They almost reverberate off each other in a matter-antimatter kind of way - if you love me - if you don’t love me - let me know - let me go. I don’t really know what to make of it, I’m sure Chris Martin didn’t mean it at all, but it’s evocative…

I’m really liking Coldplay’s new sound, actually. It’s really different, very U2; there’s the Brian Eno influence I guess? Having listened to a lot of Eno’s ambient music before even knowing he had anything to do with U2, it’s definitely present in the sort of sprawling soundscapes that Coldplay are experimenting with in Viva La Vida. The title track - their newest single - is another amazing song ♥ though after reading the lyrics a lot, I can’t make up my mind if it’s meant to be political or personal. Maybe both.