You Can Get Addicted to a Certain Kind of Sadness

A recent song has been somewhat tormenting my fairly eclectically motivated mind...an unusually catchy tune from Gotye, an Aussie or may Kiwi band with this gorgeous mosaic-laden video. The song, "Somebody I used to Know", isn't all that imaginative. Rather, it is the significantly abrupt dismantling from a very intimate position to a fairly benign one...going from a position of love to a position of unleashed fury. The video is of a rather unattractive singer, juxtaposed with beige tiles colored in a la Peter Gabriel...but Kimbra, his female singer is what draws me in the most. The first time I heard it was on the radio, so I thought it was a duet. However I soon learned it was a guest appearance from our lady friend. Never heard of Kimbra. Not sure if I liked her music. But after seeing the obscure video, the lyrics became haunting.

"You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness
Like resignation to the end, always the end
So when we found that we could not make sense
Well you said that we would still be friends
But I'll admit that I was glad it was over"

There is such terror in those words, such a trash-heap of moving from one stage to another. Such low expectations...resigning to the fact that things won't work out. And nobody ever remains friends. Nobody ever leaves alive. Nuclear bombs on balsa-wood bridges. To look at the video, and see Kimbra shouting at him, even harmonizing back ups with a wide open mouth, shouting at him. His fairly unattractive face and his fairly unique voice providing the reason for why she would even be attracted at all...it's her sideways profile yelling that is the most interesting part of the video.

I digress. Because it is the opening lyrics that really put this plane into a death spin.

"Now and then I think of when we were together
Like when you said you felt so happy you could die
Told myself that you were right for me
But felt so lonely in your company
But that was love and it's an ache I still remember"

Lonely in your company? I understand that this guy is from down under, but honestly it is the last line, the "that was love and it's an ache I still remember" that really becomes the heart of the matter. He will never forget.

It is a cutting blade. It is silver, it glistens and it reflects a brief strobe when it is flashed as it strikes downward and cuts through the major artery and the explosive nature of heart-pulsed blood is that it careens...normally it careens in the mind, agitating, writhing, a blood filled with oxygen, pulsating, red-hot to the touch and bringing us to sweat and to swear. And when she becomes somebody that he used to know it swiftly pours out of him. He will inevitably die, and she is the last memory to a mind and body cut down by her departure.

And for this to even be contemplated, for this to even be a consideration, he must be used to it. It is not the first time that the throat has been cut. Thus his addiction to a certain kind of sadness.

I'm probably reading into it too much, but I do love this song. It is simple, and it is complex, and I love that we will all interpret it the way we want to for ourselves.