Musical Interlude V: A Song You Can’t Google

In 2008, I purchased an issue of Paste Magazine that included a CD sampler. I loved buying CD samplers; that’s how I discovered The Decemberists, Arcade Fire, and a lot of indie sleaze.

One song in particular enraptured me: “Heath” by Arizona.

Looking up this song is nearly impossible. Go ahead, try it. Google, YouTube. . . you’ll get it eventually but you have to wade through a lot.

Something about the melody always makes me think of Futurama, of Fry looking out of the Planet Express ship. I watched a ton of Futurama then; I didn’t have a television, just a tiny portable DVD player. I listened to Futurama commentaries to fall asleep.

The lyrics are very simple and very few, and I’ve been singing them ever since:

I’m sad, there’s not much more that I can say
I talk away the day and there I am
Sometimes I can sleep but other nights I stay awake
I didn’t mean to stay but there I am, there I am

I feel I have lost something, I feel it in my bones

Which leads me back to my guiding question: Which came first, the music or the misery?

I was always sad then. I finally got my bipolar diagnosis in 2008, but prior to that I was “clinically depressed.” I could tell you all about my grief and my fucked up family situation, I could talk away the day about so many things. But ultimately, I was just really sad.

“Sometimes I can sleep but other nights I stay awake” is just a literal description of my entire life. The statement, in many ways, is like a horoscope: everyone has nights where they stay awake and nights they can sleep. But Past Natasha took hold of that. I could not control wakefulness or sleep. Just a fact of life. Sometimes I can. Other nights, I can’t.

The ambiguity, for me, hinges on “I didn’t mean to stay, but there I am.” The use of “there” suggests a physical presence. I didn’t mean to stay: in bed [all day]? At a friend or lover’s house? Too long at a party? The whole of the lyrics sound like an apology. Overstaying one’s welcome fits the overall scheme.

Or is it metaphysical? I didn’t mean to stay in the state of sadness? I didn’t mean to stay awake? I don’t mean to stay sad. I didn’t mean to stay awake.

But part of me thought, well, I better do this now. “Sleepless long nights/that is what my youth was for,” “1234” by Feist. I figured eventually I’d “grow up” and be able to sleep like a normal person and not cry all the time.

I do cry less now, so there’s that. Not a lot less, but still, less.

And then concluding, “I feel I have lost something.” I feel that acutely 23 hours a day. Something is missing. Sometimes it’s space my parents took up. Sometimes it’s the chemicals my mental illness denies me. Sometimes it’s something lighter, indescribable. What have I lost because I couldn’t get out of bed? Because I was up all night crying? What opportunities did I miss, what people did I miss? What could I have accomplished if I could have actually gotten some sleep?