do anything you say

I am listening to "no more shall we part", by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. It makes me feel ill, in much the same way looking through a photo album of past loves/lovers feel. It represents a period of my life, and listening catapults me back there. Painfully. There are two songs especially, two men, two men I was obsessed with (not at the same time - of course - an Obsession has but one object).

As I type "We came along this road" is playing, and yes, I feel ill. I love so much about this song: the pace, the phrasing, the gun-and-murder reference, the lyrics, Nick's voice, the tapping on the high-hat, the plodding melody, the lazy piano chords, the awkward orchestral bit at the end. It drags me down into a pit, in which I want to stay forever and ever. My Beans and Bones poem was written with this song in my head. The dust, the futility, the self-abasement, the unrequited-ness... reflect the sordid mess which was my obsession with this man.

The other song I adore is "Sweetheart come". This one evokes a different suite of feelings. They are ones of protection and comfort and support. The man I adored was in a low place, and this is something we listened to. "If he touches you again with his stupid hands his life won't be worth living." I have an acrid memory of lying with my head on his chest, thick tears in my eyes. I wrote a short story about him, which I'd like to share here, sometime soon.

A life devoid of obsession is not a life at all. You can see why I lurch from drama to disaster to drama. "I left by the back door, with my wife's lover's smoking gun, I don't know what I was hoping for, I hit the road at a run." Oh cruel Obsession, find me again.