Long Gone Before Daylight

Maybe it's the fact that I'm beginning to heal, but then the memory of her smile in the morning and her foot stroking my calf trips me up. Or maybe it's the fact that I don't know which is sadder, that I won't see her grinning as we walk down 3rd Street Promenade dragging me from store to store, or that it won't matter to me eventually. But the Cardigans' album "Long Gone Before Daylight" has been on repeat for the last two days and nights.

I bought this album as well as Bob Dylan's "Blood On The Tracks" on the same day. Much has been said about "Blood On The Tracks", Dylan's confessional written after his first divorce, by men far more articulate than I. (Thanks to Dubois for recommending it to me.) It's too close in time for me to hear "If You See Her, Say Hello" and not get quiet and sad. And that's the album I should be listening to over and over again. But then I put in "Long Gone Before Daylight" . . .

Yeah, we all heard "Lovefool" full of pop cheer and Nina Persson's perky voice. Oh look, isn't it cute that slightly twisted lyrics are meshed with bubblegum melodies. So I put in "Long Gone Before Daylight" to distract me. But you don't heal by avoiding the pain, but by dealing with it.

The first track, "Communication," begins with single notes off an acoustic guitar. And then Nina's voice whispers in. She sounds like Shawn Colvin off her first album, "Steady On," with all the vulnerability that got lost after "A Few Small Things."

for 27 years I've been trying
to believe and confide in
different people I found

some of them got closer than others
and some wouldn't even bother
and then you came around

But this isn't a song about finding love. The song is all the heartache, the loneliness and the frustration of two people who want each other but have too much hurt and baggage to even get started. There's a subtle string arrangement as the lyrics and the chorus progresses, but that's as stirring as it gets. There's a little bit of hope as the song leads to its climax, I'll never really learn how to love you / but I know that I love you through the hole in the sky / where I see you, the most confident she sounds in the song. In the end though, it's a sad acceptance that things are not going to work out.

and I hold
a record for being patient
with your kind of hesitation

I need you, you want me
but I don't know
how to connect
so I disconnect
I disconnect

Every song is about love, some of it wrong, some of it failed, some full of hope but needing a lot of faith.

In "And You Kissed Me", Nina sounds like Sheryl Crow before she started shilling for credit cards and dated fashion moguls. It's Sheryl Crow had she stuck with that honesty of the ballads on "Tuesday Night Music Club." The first words are:

man, I've had a few
but they wouldn't quite blow me like you
you gave me your name and signed
with a halo around my eye

This is The Afghan Whig's "Gentlemen" taken from the point of view of the abused.

lord, I've had my deal
but I never quite knew how it feels
when love makes you wake up sore
with fists that are ready for more

"Please Sister" and "Lead Me Into The Night" could've been written by Nick Cave, the first written in his melancholy mood, and latter in his quiet, tender mode of "Into My Arms." In "Please Sister," it's soul gone bad. The realization that she's done wrong, love gone sour. so if it's true that love will never die / then why do the lovers work so hard to stay alive? Meanwhile, "Lead Me Into The Night" is a slow, country ballad about falling for that person everyone says is bad for you, and willingly following that person. to lead me into the night / oh please drive away the light / although my mother will never understand / I walk with him away from the light and into the night

"For What It's Worth" is perhaps the most pop of the songs, with hooks that Carol King could've written. This should've been my theme for the last week. A person who, despite all the shit gone through and done to, still wants to the other person to stay.

hey, please baby come back
there'll be no more lovin' attacks
and I'll be keeping it cool tonight
the 4-letter word is out of my head
come on around, get back in my bed
keep making me feel alright

And still, she realizes all the ambivalence and all the wrongness of the situation. for what it's worth - I love you! / and what is worse - I really do...

The original version of the album ended with "03.45: No Sleep," a bittersweet lullabye. She's gone through all the giddiness and the disappointments, the love and the emptiness. The arrangement is sparse, just Nina, an acoustic guitar and a soft drum. She's alone, she's tired, and yet something in her voice still has hope.

it's way too late to think of
someone I would call now
the neon signs got tired
red eye flights help the stars out
I'm safe in a corner
just hours before me


I'm waking with the roaches
the world has surrendered
I'm dating ancient ghosts
[the ones I made friends with]
the comfort of fireflies
long gone before daylight


and if I had one wish fulfilled tonight
I'd ask for the sun to never rise
if God lent his voice to me to speak
I'd say: "go to bed, world!"

So I should go to bed soon. And I'd be willing to go through this over and over. There'll be regret. There'll be pain. But I'll be waking up again.