He's back! (aka the saga that refuses to die...)

“Turn down the lights, turn down the bed

Turn down these voices, inside my head

Lay down with me, tell me no lies

Just hold me close, don’t patronize me
Don’t patronize me…”

Every so often someone writes a song that transcends damn near everything we’ve ever heard before.  Lyrics so honest you wonder how they got into your head while they were writing it.  A voice that delivers an emotion so strong its practically tangible, it’s a caress on the cheek, an embrace to your soul, a much needed slap across your face, waking you up to the feelings you’ve been trying to hide for so long.  Today’s song is exactly that.  “I cant make you love me” is the one of those songs I listen to and freeze, it takes me to a dark place that I’m both familiar with and immensely scared of. 

I first heard this song in 1998, back when I was in campus in the middle of what was my ‘first love’.  When I got the CD, George Michael’s Best of compilation (‘Ladies and Gentlemen’), I listened to it non-stop for months on end, and while this song in particular was love at first sight/hearing (the simplicity of it blew me away), it was not my favourite.  About six months later, my ‘love’ had tupad me like a used tissue, for his childhood sweetheart no less (it was quite a soap opera, as only campo drama can be…) and I was in the throes of my first heartbreak.  All of a sudden, the song took on new meaning, George was speaking to me, ‘strumming my soul with his fingers, singing my song with his words…’, to quote a woman much more talented than me.  In my innocent mind, my recently ended relationship was a classic case of a love that was doomed from the start, because ‘he never loved me’.  Ah, the sweet foolishness of youth, no?

“Cause I can’t make you love me if you don’t
You can’t make your heart feel something that it won’t…”

Almost ten years later and a truly devastating ‘all grown up’ break-up later, this song was back on heavy rotation.  ‘Not again!’ I cried to myself, wrapping myself in the beautiful voice of George as I attempted to nurse myself back to sanity, but this time, being older and wiser, I threw in a good measure of alcohol as well, all the better to bring out the emotion (or dull it, depending).  Unfortunately, second time around, George’s magic wasn’t working, so I dumped the music and clung to the bottle.  I tell you, if I did not become a full blown alcoholic during those six months, it wasn’t because I didn’t try, I drank more crap in that period than I had drunk in all the years preceding it.  Fortunately for me, my losing streak continued and I failed at that too, that plus my guardian angel was working overtime, protecting me from myself.  I was in a daze, numb, not even my extensive collection of ‘pick yourself up and dust yourself off’ songs could get through the fog (actually one did, but I’ll write about it another day).  Eventually, as with all things life, that too came to pass, and George finally began to get through again.  But this time the song wasn’t one of youthful longing, it had become the song of a woman tired of hanging on to something that didn’t exist anymore.  It became a farewell.

“Here in the dark, in these final hours

I will lay down my heart, and I’ll feel the power
But you won’t, no you won’t

And I can’t make you love me

If you don’t…”

Now around the same time, Paco gave me the Boyz II Men album of covers (I forget what it’s called), and I stumbled across this very song.  ‘What’s this?’ I asked, confused, ‘These bastards have the nerve to cover George, my George?  Nkt!’  And with that I dismissed the album wholesale, seeing as how I despise covers, or at least I used to.  Then one night, a couple of months back, I’m working late as usual and listening to Capital, the request session between midnight and 1.00 am to be precise, and a random guy requests this song, no doubt nursing heartbreak of his own.  I get excited because I’m expecting to hear George, or at the very least the Boyz geniuses, who I still love despite my issues (those buggers sang the songs which those of us who were teens in the early 90’s had our first kisses to, and possibly more, you can’t help but have a soft spot, no?).  Instead the presenter plays a version by Will Downing and I’m wondering, ‘Eh?  Kwani how many guys have covered George?’  Very disturbed by this new revelation, and slightly idle as usual, I proceeded to google the song. 

I never learn, do I? 

On the off chance you glanced at the soundtrack section today, you may have noticed that there’s a second version of the song uploaded as well.  That’s the original.  Yes folks, turns out my man George is an impostor.  This time though, having gone through the D’angelo/Smokey debacle, I remained calm and composed.  And then I wept a little.  Kidding.  The song was originally released in 1991 and is one of Bonnie Raitt’s biggest hits, understandably, and has been covered by countless artists, from Prince to Adele to Kenny Rogers.  And it gets better, if you listen to the original, you’ll hear distinctive piano playing accompanying her raspy voice, distinctive to those of you who are/were fans of Sundowner.  The fellow playing is none other than Bruce Hornsby of ‘Mandolin Rain’ fame, or for the hip-hop heads amongst us, the chap who sang the song sampled in Tupac’s ‘Changes’, ‘The way it is’.  That 6 degrees of separation saga is no lie I tell you, but that too is a story for another day.  Another useless fact for you, Ms Raitt is quoted as saying that she struggles to sing this song live, because the emotion of the song is such that she’s forced to dig deep, too deep sometimes.  So you see, I didn’t imagine the ‘naisikia kwa roho’ feeling I got, and still get, there are many others like me.  I’m not crazy, is all I’m saying.

Why am I subjecting you to a music appreciation class?  Because George is back on rotation, courtesy of the mess with Disappearing Dude.  Only this time, he’s not doing the trick.  Problem is, this time I think I’m the one who was not feeling the love, not the other way around.  No, that’s not it.  Whatever love I may have felt, and I’m probably still feeling seeing as how I clearly have separation issues, it wasn’t enough.  I gave up on this man, not because I didn’t care about him, I simply cared about myself more.  I’ve always been the idiot who will keep fighting till there’s no fight left in me, and then I’ll try again one more time, just to be sure, because I believe that anything worth having is worth fighting for.  At least I did.  Until recently.  It’s a scary thing when you realise you’ve grown up, or grown away.

“Morning will come and I’ll do what’s right

Just give me till then, to give up this fight

And I will give up this fight…”

The man has reappeared, seemingly serious and intent on making up for past transgressions, transgressions I might add he seems to have no knowledge of.  In one of the stranger ironies of my life, he seems completely unaware of the fact that shit ended, and not in a particularly good way.  The way he’s carrying on, he simply went away for a couple of weeks and now he’s back to pick up where we left off.  Men, huh?  Can’t live with them, can’t shoot them!  Now I’m a believer in second chances and what not, but how am I supposed to handle a genius who doesn’t even know we’re on round two?  I have no idea what to do, so I’m adopting my tried and tested method of, ‘Freeze!  Don’t move a muscle, maybe he won’t see you…’, this as the lion is staring at me, licking its paws in anticipation, about to pounce on my juicy and conveniently immobile ass.  If you happen to find this and related posts gone one day, in my attempt to remove traces of my emotional infidelity (you’re all my clandes and if I go down I’m taking you with me, I’m just saying…), know that I’ve been bitten.  Again.  Until then however, I shall continue to hold my ‘statue’, in the delusional hope that bloody simba is blind…