.
No I cannot forgive you yet
No I cannot forgive you yet
You leave us all in debt
I should have known…
.
When the Foo Fighter’s song “I Should Have Known” came out, group lead Dave Grohl stated -and he does have a point- that anything he writes relating to loss or death, the public will generally read into it that it is in some fashion related to the suicide of his Nirvana band mate, Kurt Cobain. However, the song becomes especially more haunting and Cobain related for those of us that knew that Dave was joined by two other members of the now defunct Nirvana as guests musicians on this song. And while Grohl certainly understands why the public instantly makes the connection to Cobain here, he has stated repeatedly that yes Kurt is in there, the song was not specifically about him.
And that I can understand…
For just as much as I feel the impact of the loss Cobain in this song, as I also feel the loss of my late-husband…
I was home -thank goodness- when I first heard the song. On that very first listen, by the end of the first stanza, I remember I stopped everything I was doing at the moment, sat down and just listened to the song on repeat. “I Should Have Known” immediately reminded me of some of the stages of grieving, I went through…
The guilt: I’m still standing here, You leave my heart in debt, caught me unawares…
But especially the crescendo as Grohl refrains No I cannot forgive you yet.
It’s raw, it’s pounding, you can all but see the fury and anguish pouring out. For those of us who have walked the grieving path, especially for the loss of someone who left us unexpectedly, we know this. We know it too well.
When my husband passed away, I recall being in that anger stage for a very long time.
A. Very. Long. Time…
And this song took me right back there to that very first year of grieving. It hit me so hard, that when I was finally able to turn the song off an hour later, I was hurt and wanted to scream all over again. This song is such a brilliant mood changer for me, even now. Here I am -some seven years after my husband’s passing and two years after the song’s debut- that the moment I heard those first opening chords of the strings through my iPod, it still gave me a moment’s pause, that I stopped reading my book and just listened.
Enough of a pause that, hours later, I still had to acknowledge it and write this blog.
Everyone has a song that gives them pause… what’s yours?
Raivenne-lations 
Oh, there are many, for different reasons. One in the same vein as this would be Coldplay’s Fix You, which for some time after leaving NYC would make me sob every time I heard it, bringing my ex strongly to mind. Still makes me misty. And Sibelius’ Valse Triste gets me every time too, but that is simply from the power of the vignette it was applied to- in an odd little knockoff of Fantasia called Allegro Non Troppo in which each story line is dark, rather than Disney. Watch it if you can find it, but you might want to fast forward through the live skits between each piece. There’s another story about evolution set to Ravel’s Bolero with an especially acid twist, too. I normally decry the repetition in that song (a la Pachelbel’s Canon in D), but it is perfect here.
I totally understand Q. Different songs evoke different moods. On the flip side of the above, it is near impossible for me to hear the B52’s “Love Shack” and not want to at the very least nod my head to it. If I have Drowning Pool’s “Bodies” on repeat I am generally trying very hard to not obey the refrain of that song.
Did I ever play Robey’s Paris, Paree for you? You would remember if I did. Hobbit be trippin’ on that.
The Rose by Bette Midler… I’m a sucker for ballads and this is one of the tops for me… It pulls me in… “Love it is a flower and you the only seed.” Dang.