It wasn't new to me. I'd run out to buy the album on the day of its release, an eager little Skunk Anansie obsessive who would take what she could get in what she assumed to be their permanent absence (I spent so long wishing that they'd come back, writing about it and complaining to virtual strangers about it and what will it take, guys, seriously, that I now feel I've made some strange pact with the universe to buy everything they ever record for the rest of time regardless of how good or bad it is, and I'm beginning to feel like they know that). I got it home, listened to it, thought, "Her voice is still one of the most awesome things nature has ever created, but this is clearly not Skunk Anansie" and didn't pay it much more attention. A few of the songs found their way into my writing playlist, but they weren't special. Her voice was special, but the songs weren't anything much.
This song didn't become mine until several years later. When this song became mine, I was spending days at a time in bed, sleeping through the afternoons, leaving the house as sporadically as I could possibly manage. I wasn't interested in life, and though I didn't ever consider doing anything about it, I often wondered why it wouldn't just stop.
He would call me every day. He would bring me food. Sometimes he would yell at me for living in bed, if he wanted something to yell at me for, but mostly he liked that I wasn't going out, that nobody else could see me. It made life a lot more difficult, but it eased his mind. I wasn't going anywhere.
Part of him had always been convinced that I was going to leave, or rather, that somebody was going to take me from him. I knew that wasn't going to happen, because who'd want to take me?
This song became mine as I started to understand exactly what he was doing to me. This song became mine as he told me, repeatedly, that I had absolutely no skills for the real world and would never be able to survive in it. This song became mine as he listed all the things he was doing for me, as though they were favours rather than hindrances and manipulations.
What was I waiting for? Waiting for the bubble to burst?
The song remained mine as I started to get myself together, as I rediscovered hobbies and mornings and the ability to shower. The song remained mine as I went for walks and took photos and called my friends.
Now I'm up and running...
The song was mine after I made that final call to him. The song was mine as I ignored his messages and his turning up at my house and his promises to change, and it was mine as I spent the next several months trying to get my head around what had been happening for the past five years.
Strong enough to walk away... and leave you alone.
The song isn't so much mine anymore. I used to feel weirdly possessive over it, wanting to believe that nobody else had ever heard of it. The idea of other people listening to it made me feel uncomfortable, as though they were listening to the quietest and most hidden parts of my mind. Even if the people in question had no idea that this song meant anything to me, it still felt like they were too close to my vulnerabilities.
Luckily I didn't come across these people very often, because who cared about this song? Lead singer of some defunct indie rock band released an album? So what? I've played it four or five times while writing this post, and it is not an exceptional song. It's not bad, but it's not Secretly. There's no real reason to care about this song.
And yet it still gets me. I don't feel ownership of it anymore, but it still gets me, even on the fifth playback in a row. I hear it and I can remember, viscerally, everything I felt back then. I hear it and it's like looking back over my shoulder and seeing just how fucking far I walked away. If I'm feeling confused or overwhelmed or useless and I hear this song, the feelings stop, or at least fade. I'm not lost. Quite the opposite.
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