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There are songs that hurt
How music devastates
There are songs that hurt. They hurt a lot.
And I’m not sure what it means that they do, or what I’m to do about it, if anything.
One of these songs, however, I have managed to re-filter through my adult self and come to love on my own terms. Now, it is one of my favorite songs. It no longer devastates me, though it always makes me wistful.
That song is Killing Me Softly, by Roberta Flack. I have the distinct memory of being a very young child in the loft of a snow cabin in the Lake Tahoe region of California. I could see my parents in the living room down below, in front of the fire. My siblings and I were upstairs. Everyone was asleep but me. I listened to the song and watched my parents in the living room below and felt something terribly complex.
It was a rare moment of peace in my family. My parents were momentarily calm, grounded. They were murmuring, not fighting. That day, my father had built us an ice house. I can still smell the snow, and see my father wearing a black Russian hat and holding a shovel. I remember my wet, red snowsuit, my mittens, and my aching fingers.
We were happy. I wasn’t frightened.
The lyrics caught my attention too. They were odd. Strumming my fate with his fingers, singing my life…
