"The Good Kind" - The Wreckers

"The Good Kind"
The Wreckers
Lyrics
Michelle Branch and Jessica Harp

nucountry.com

We've all made that one friend who raises our hopes so high only to let us down.  We meet them and get sucked in because we have no choice.  They're right there in front of us, with their faces insisting that they'll take our "tortured hearts by the hand" but when the time comes, they "write us off."

So many people pretend to be someone they're not.  They get excited over opportunities but never follow through.  But where does that leave us?  We who fall for their facades?  Are we really condemned to take a slow walk down the ego-crushing path they pave for us?  In one felt swoop they can break down our self-image.  And yet they don't know that we're crying in the background, dying for their approval.  Our own lives are changed because of it.  And the worst part is, theirs don't suffer.  Their facades live on.  And even those we love won't believe us when we say we know something deeper.  We know who they are, but it's a knowledge that comes from their secret assaults upon us.

"The Good Kind"is one of many soulful hits featured on The Wreckers' sole studio album "Stand Still Look Pretty".  Michelle Branch, an accomplished pop-rock singer/songwriter recruited her good friend and backup vocalist Jessica Harp to create this dynamic duo in 2005.  “I knew there was something special about our voices together and the songs Michelle and I had written,” Harp said on her website. “I thought they deserved a chance to be heard, so I said yes without hesitation.” Branch's pop-rock style and Harp's country style meshed well together and their 12-track album became quite a hit following its release in May, 2006.  Unfortunately, the duo split up in 2008 and decided to follow their own solo tracks.  The Wreckers site now merely offers links to the two singers' individual websites. However, many fans myself included, are hoping for their reunion and the production of another album. Especially considering the emotional vindication their straightforward songs provide.

Michelle Branch was never a typical girl, even for a singer.  “I was the odd rock girl out,” she describes on her website, “I wrote all my own stuff, and I didn’t really play dress up. I was just uncomfortable with all that. I was this girl from Sedona wearing Led Zeppelin T-shirts, hemp necklaces and baggy pants, so that whole sex kitten thing just wasn’t me." Maybe that's why Branch has such a realistic perspective reaching out to girls in her songs.  Sometimes it's hard to know how "normal" we should be.  By being loners we kind of set ourselves up for heartache.  But as Harp says, you can't make a country song without heartache.  To be a success, some minimal amount of crushed hopes is necessary.

So maybe that's where the douchebags find their worth.  We wish they knew better than to cut down an attractive girl just because their ego's far from thriving.  We wish they could just admit their issues as opposed to making it seem like those issues are ours.  But if they can't, at least they inspire us to break out of our misery and "force to become strong when we just crave being weak."  At least they make us realize that we're worth something so much more.  And if they keep fooling others while "hiding behind lying eyes", at least we've realized that we don't have to.  At least we smile with a smile that everyone, especially we, can recognize.