Speak, but don't confide.

Fall in love and fall apart,
Things will end before they start.

This was an idea I first had three years ago while in the midst of discovering many new bands with powerful lyrics: what if I took the best lines from the songs I knew and put them together to tell my own story?  This piecemeal effort is what you'll find below, with all song and artist credits at the end of the post.  No plagiarism was intended.  Enjoy.


Tell me what you saw in me, and I'll try to replicate it with a scene:

All my delight, all that mattered,
I couldn't be at rest.
From what I liked, from what I gathered,
I couldn't be my best.

I never meant to cause you pain
Don't go, no
I never meant to lead you on,
Stay with me until I sleep within your arms
I only meant to please me, however.
But we can do much more together

I'm nothing but a selfish man
I could still love you through each stumble, shift and sway
And did you think I'd stay the night?
If it pleases you to leave me, just go,
And did you think I'd love you forever?
For I have no spell on you, it's all a ghost

So don't carry on, carrying efforts, oh no
Somewhere there's room for each of us to grow
If you want to live a lie, and love what you lose
I'd become what I hated when I was with you
But every option I have costs more than I've got.

No man is an island, this I know
The end will come slow
But can't you see that maybe you were the ocean, and I was just a stone?
And love breaks your heart
I know when all's said we're the same.
But love without pain isn't really romance.

I can't get out of what I'm into with you,
Does it trouble your head the way you trouble mine?
Shed your love, shed your love
What might have been lost--

------

I can remember when it was good,
Moments of happiness in bloom
All of the love we left behind,
Watching the flashbacks intertwine,
Memories I will never find.

Step down, just once learn how to be alone
The ground beneath me gone
The sky might open up
And sometimes I can't believe it,
But I'm moving past the feeling and into the light.

Because, after all, it's just one of those things.










-------
Falling Away With You -- Muse
We Looked Like Giants -- Death Cab
What's Wrong -- Grizzly Bear
This Song -- Grizzly Bear
Sleeping Ute (title) -- Grizzly Bear
Speak in Rounds -- Grizzly Bear
Holland -- Sufjan Stevens
Impossible Soul -- Sufjan Stevens
Enchanting Ghost -- Sufjan Stevens
Only This Moment -- Royksopp
7/4 (Shoreline) -- Broken Social Scene
The Suburbs -- Arcade Fire
The Wolves -- Bon Iver
Black Flies -- Ben Howard
All We Ask -- Grizzly Bear
Exile Vilify -- The National
Believing is Art -- Spoon
Shed Your Love -- The Helio Sequence
Plans -- Grizzly Bear
Fire Away -- Dawes