so after much searching since the related post, i think i’ve come up with what i believe to be the greatest love song ever written. the artist describes it as being “six verses about having nothing to say” and it’s pretty much my thought process (verbatim) when i’m with a girl that i like or when i’m just thinking about a girl that i like. do i say something? is it worth the risk? is she thinking the same things? will i ever figure this “love” thing out? so check out the lyrics and, if you want extra cool points, buy the album!! it’s by Sandra McCracken and is off her latest album, Gypsy Flat Road.

springtime indiana

springtime indiana
you are sleeping by my side
here across the miles we ramble
past where the road divides
i wish i could tell you…but i just can’t find the words

i’ve never been good with my thoughts
and even worse with my words
but you read like familiar poetry
that i have never heard
i wish i could tell you…but i just can’t find the words

so let’s move across the ocean
and pitch the tent stakes wide
you be the one to come after me
and i will be your bride
i wish i could tell you…but i just can’t find the words

i am all at once courageous
i am all at once afraid
it came over me like nightfall
like a freight train
i can’t seem to hold it in
but i can’t seem to run away

you came in without notice
and settled all around my heart
took up residence in all the places
that were vacant and dark
i wish i could tell you…but i just can’t find the words

springtime indiana
you are starting to wake
and i am laden with the thoughts
of everything i mean to say
i wish I could tell you…but I just can’t find the words

so i was sitting at home today, playing my guitar, listening to music, and i got a thought as i was listening to John Mayer’s “Love Song for No One.” the thought is, what is it that makes a good love song good? is goodness found in the fact that it’s written for a specific someone in mind, thus producing genuine feelings that only love (or emotions that are seemingly love) can produce? or is it found in just the human need and want for the companionship of another person, not having a specific person in mind, just wanting a warm body to spend your life with? or is it merely found in the ability to carefully choose words and to write well?

whatever the case may be, love songs are some of the most interesting pieces of writing to ever grace the field of poetry. just think about it. a single song can make you weep with joy or weep with sorrow. it can make you elated that the guy gets the girl (or vice versa) at the end of the song. it can make you hopeful that there will someday be someone who can write such beautiful words for you. it can make you angry at the hurt that one person is putting another through. all that can come from just one single song. the sheer power that a musician has over your emotions while playing a love song is also something unique to this genre. with the simple change of a key, the musician can send you from being hopeful and excited about the people in the song to being sympathetic and hurting for those people, only to send you back into elation at the next key change.

all this to say: i wish i could write a good love song. just one. that’s all i need. i’ve tried, sure. but none that i have written have really invoked the kind of emotion that is necessary when one thinks of a “love song.” so maybe someday when i get a specific person that brings out the best in me, i’ll be able to write the song that i’ve always wanted to write. until then………..

so have you ever noticed that you can share comfortable silences with certain people? not silences that are all awkward as you frantically search for something to say, only to say something completely random and meaningless. but silences in which there is no anxiety in saying nothing at all. times where you can just enjoy a peaceful stroll with a person and just soak up all of the beauty in the world around you without having to worry about the nonsense that humans daily engage themselves in discussing. or a person with whom you can have a conversation that ends in a weird spot that would normally produce the aforementioned awkward silence, only there is no awkwardness to be found. you simply just realize that there’s either nothing more to be said, or take solace in the fact that it’s just time to shut the hell up and enjoy the moment. i would like to find a person like that. maybe someday. until then………..

so today i’m just gonna post the lyrics to a song. i’ve completely fallen in love with this song and have a sort of emotional attachment to it since it so resembles many episodes of my life, and even the episode in which i currently type on this screen, to some extent. the song was written by Andrew Osenga and is as follows…

beautiful girl

i could not ask for a more beautiful face
i could not dream of truer eyes
i could not want the touch of softer hands
but i also realize
i’m not the man to hold you
and every second more i stay
i become the thief of all the things
that this is not the time to give away

you beautiful girl, beautiful girl

you said you think that i give up too soon
on the nice girls that i find
so we stayed here and we waited
for love to ripen like the wine
did i stay because i’m lonely?
did i stay because i care?
all i know is i would rather take a bullet
than hurt what i hold dear

you beautiful girl, beautiful girl

and the hardest thing is leaving
it’d be so simple just to stay
but the truth it is the loving thing
so it’s best for me to walk away

because i always break what’s fragile

you beautiful girl

so what is it about rain that makes it such a sexy thing? i mean, really think about it. sexiest dates? taking a walk and the two of you are caught in the rain and spend a good deal of time playing in it. sexiest kisses? performed in the pouring rain. i sit here tonight, listening to the rain splash against the tin roof of my “garage” and i’m reminded of the Norah Jones song “Come Away With Me.” what is that song? you guessed it: sexy.

so what is it about rain? i can stand in the shower with my clothes on and get the same general idea, but it doesn’t invoke the same emotions. so where does the rain’s inherent sexiness come from? is it the spontaneity found within the rain event? since we have no control over it, it’s always a surprise to be caught in it. we’re taken back to our childhoods where we lived to play in the rain. we splash in puddles, we lift our heads skywards and let the rain hit against our eyelashes, all in an attempt to escape from our present lives in order to re-live a time less stressful. a time of primitive naivety that each of tries so desperately to reclaim at times. or could it be that the sexiness of rain is found in its subtle eroticism? rain exists in all types of rhythms, angles, intensities and each one of these ideas may play tricks on our subconscious. they play on the carnal, primal instincts that we, as humans, possess and bring out the desire and want to act on those instincts. and so we associate the rain with those desires and even use the rain as an excuse in order to act those desires out. and that, i think, is where the rain’s sexiness comes from. so take that as you will and never pass up a chance to play in the rain. until then…………..

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
–Langston Hughes