"This is war. Every line is about who I don't wanna write about anymore" - Brand New

I get off on good song lyrics. Wrapped up in a driving bass line or a haunting melody, concise lyrics that nail my thoughts exactly will stick with me forever. I can't help it. I think most people match music to their moods; I tend to match up the lyrics to what I'm feeling, no matter what the song sounds like. It all builds up to that moment where I sing someone else's words and it says what I feel better than I can and in that moment I feel this connectedness with people and pain and love and loss and victory and release and joy and then I feel okay about whatever is going on. Because someone else gets it too. And I'm not a shitty person for thinking it first.

Kat George, one of my favorite writers in the whole entire world, recently wrote about how mixing good music in relationships is wicked dangerous.  I have believed this for years, and I'm sure her/our experiences are pretty common among twenty-something-old-soul-music-lovers. It works like this: you're all lovey-dovey with Boy X who is oh so awesome and your relationship is super perfect and you have this one song that makes you giggle and erupt into kisses or stolen looks when you hear it unexpectedly in public. But then something changes with Boy X. Either you go away to college, or you just drift apart naturally, or one day you find out he's been sleeping with his boss behind your back anyway. For whatever reason, things are over and you're left with a song you probably really liked but can't listen to now because it's a piece of what used to be and isn't now. And since you're human, that kills you.

I've lost many a song this way. But before I tell you why I can't listen to "Surfer Girl" by the Beach Boys or pretty much anything by Motion City Soundtrack, I want to help you keep your music library intact by offering this piece of advice.

Don't do it with friendships either. When taking a trip to Friendship Land, leave the iPod at home. I swear I lose more songs to shitty things 'friends' do than to shitty boyfriends. And in case you missed it, I once dated Boy Who Cheated On Me With His Boss. Maybe it's my fault for attaching songs to people and memories so easily, but there are times when a song pops up and knocks the wind out of me.

It happened a few nights ago when one of my favorite bands, Maylene and the Sons of Disaster, played in town and I missed it due to illness. No big deal, I have an iPod, I'll just rock out at home. Plus I saw them not that long ago. And then there I was, punched in the gut by some lyrics, choked out by a few chords, gasping for emotional oxygen as I tried to swim out of the memories that came rushing back.

A friend of mine was with me when I last saw Maylene. We aren't friends anymore. One too many bruises to the ego and we parted ways. I pushed him away.

Michael, you made me push you away.

"Look what you're faced to find. 
You're gonna get it in your own sweet time.
There's no easy way to say
you make your mistakes and pay
that's just the way it's done. 
It's just a shock... I know you will feel it. 

Stop thinking about something
that's nothing like the way things are.
Truth has a motive
Regardless of what you want."
"Just A Shock" - MATSOD