I told Travis very little music has inspired me lately. He gave me a disc of his 40 or so favorite songs from 2013. I listened on the drive back from Indiana. This was the next to last song and it grabbed me more than any of the others. I know admittedly absolutely nothing about Phosphorescent or his music, and I am late, and it's okay, because it seems this song is all that needs to be known.
It's dressed up a bit differently, in what's almost early 90's easy-listening synth pop, or not far from Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia." But it's a folk song at its core in every way, with its repetitive churning built on a simple soul-plucking chord progression, its strong melody offered by a wavering worse for wear voice.
"Love never fails," Paul boldly asserts. Taken at his word he sounds like a hopeless romantic with his heart on his sleeve. Like he believes in destiny and soul mates and walks on the beach and growing old together. It's a phrase fit for a wedding day, but we roll our eyes through the daily grind that follows.
He's got his work cut out for him, because the majority of the canon of modern pop music says just the opposite. Love always fails, it never lasts. In the words of this song, it is fading, fickle, a disfiguring, caging killer. Love is a prison. Love is a murderer. Love takes, hurts, breaks, destroys.
Is he exaggerating? Typical depressed folk artist? I'm afraid not. This is the human experience, whether it's sung by Phosphorescent or Miley Cyrus. Oddly enough the lyrics from last year's hit song don't sound much different: clawing, chaining, warring, wrecking and breaking.
If our artists speak for us, we've not much optimism left for love. It's take what you can get when you can get it, enjoy it while it lasts, but overall we're self-protecting cynics, afraid to commit, knowing we'll only one day be disappointed, eventually chewed up and spit out.
Paul and his unfailing love are left to walk the beach alone, taking pauses to write Hallmark cards and happy endings, none of which we actually believe. He's at best an innocent dreamer, at worst a pitiful lunatic.
Or maybe the problem is our notion of love.
Maybe the definition is wrong.
Maybe the object is misguided.
Maybe the source is insufficient.
Maybe all the disappointment is our problem, not love's. Maybe what we call love is hardly love at all, and all its painful failure only serves to point us towards what we're really so desperately looking for. Maybe there exists a love that never fails after all.
Phosphorescent, "Song for Zula" from Muchacho
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