Sing In My Ear (And Tell Me You Hate Me)

One of the worst things about being a divorced musician is there are too many times when I can't listen to music now - something I would've thought impossible a couple of years ago. I shy away from love songs especially, which I adore, but now they mock the feelings I had, making me feel like a fool for having loved at all. (Corny as it sounds, I used to serenade my spouse with impromptu versions of Hank Williams's You Are My Sunshine, and The Ink Spots's I Dont Want To Set The World On Fire, fairly regularly.) Most songs just have too many memories wrapped up in them, now, to be enjoyable. And the idea that she'll forever hear certain songs, and remember how much I loved her, gives me no comfort after she's crushed the whole thing like so many spent cigarettes.

Having it all come down around my ears because of adulterous interference, inspired by new age "beliefs", and "feelings" - and not by anything I actually said or did - is another thing that makes the listening difficult now as well, don't ask me why. (Or, maybe, it's my ex having sex with someone else - coupled with her mother's dead body - I don't know.) All I do know is, if I never hear Love and Rockets's Kundalini Express again, it'll be fine with me. The same thing goes for Me And Mrs Jones by Billy Paul. Both songs now only remind me of how the most awful things can be dressed up to look appealing: One about going completely out of your mind from meditation and the other about two people betraying those they, long ago, convinced to love them. Man, how did I miss that before?

I must have been too in love to notice.

That's why I'm now living: