"Belong" - Cary Brothers

Cary Brothers
"Belong"
Lyrics

Source: www.americansongwriters.com

Do you ever get the feeling you don't belong?  It could be that you're in a group of people from which you appear significantly different.  It could be you're in a foreign place and you don't speak the language.  Or maybe it's just that you walk in the room and you feel their empty greetings, their empty stares and you just know.  It's not spoken.  If it is, it's behind your back most of the time.  Maybe it's hard to take because once upon a time, you belonged.  But now you don't.  Just walk by.  Just walk on by.


The best songs in my opinion are not ones about bitter love.  Those are fun in the cases when you're feeling better and you just need to belt out. The best ones are ones that address larger issues - issues that affect us deep within.  The best ones are ones that talk about not only the fact that we are disrespected, but why being disrespected hurts us.

Cary Brothers is an alumnus from my own Northwestern University, where he was an English major.  He writes songs specifically for TV shows, such as ABC's Grey's Anatomy and movies, such as Garden State (2004). His first of two albums, "Who You Are," was released on May 29, 2007.  Brothers released his second album, "Under Control," on April 6, 2010.  It premiered at #1 on the iTunes Singer-Songwriter Chart.

The thing that hits me about this song is more than Brothers' soothing yet piercing voice.  It's the fact that Brothers is so regretful, yet so sure that he doesn't belong.  He's almost urging us all to accept that we are not going to belong everywhere.  Sometimes we just don't.  And we have to believe that not belonging is okay.  We can't do anything if we try over and over again to be more than civil, caring from the bottom of our hearts and we're only greeted with scorn.  We can't help if we release our feelings in random bursts of affection and then are shut down by conditions that we don't even realize why they're in place.  It's more than thoughtfulness when we reach out.  It's more than sharing.  And we want more than appreciation and thought.  We want acceptance.  We want acceptance from people who have scorned us.  We don't want to be burned down into the ground forever.  Because maybe we are all loners, but it sure damn sucks to be loners in our own homes.

What do we do in these situations - situations in which we strive for acceptance but just can't seem to get it, even while sincere?  What do we do when we feel our guards crashing down, wanting to be vulnerable but we know that if we do we'll get hurt?  Do we push them up again?  Do we become closed?  Doesn't that make us just like them - the people who are shutting us out for their own mysterious reasons?

We can pretend it doesn't matter.  We can all pretend that we find it okay not to belong.  What use is their company anyway if they don't want ours?  But the thing is - it's hard when you just don't know what you've done.  You don't know what part of your natural personality could be so despicable that it causes people to perpetually hate who you are?

The truth is, nobody is liked by everyone.  You're not going to belong everywhere.  I guess for me, I just wish I knew why - why don't I belong?

"Better Than Revenge" - Taylor Swift

"Better Than Revenge"

Taylor Swift

Lyrics

Source: www.starjerk.com

I hate to use Taylor for a second time, but the truth is, I really don't hate it.  When you're really angry - when you're really passionate about something, Taylor is the one to whom you should turn.  She spills out her life in front of you with no restraint.  She gives you something to hold onto - something that stems directly from where she's been.  Some will say that this is a bad thing.  Why should you spill out your life for everyone to see?  Doesn't that make you vulnerable?  Doesn't that encourage people to talk behind your back?  After all, what could be worse than that?  How will you go on if a group of defensive, insecure people refuse to like you no matter what you do?  The answer is:  you learn to deal with it.  You learn to walk by.  Maybe it hurts you for a few minutes because you are a good person and you want to reach out.  You wish you weren't hated.  But you are.   And hey, you're faced with a choice:  Are you going to change for their benefit, or keep charging forward for your own?

I don't have to give you a bio.  You can look down to the previous post if you're curious.  Instead, I'll make this post solely devoted to the song about which it speaks - a song from Taylor's new album, "Speak Now."  The song talks about Taylor's feelings towards a girl that steals her boyfriend faster than she "could say sabotage."  During the verses, she describes the situation and addresses the other girl.  During the choruses lie Taylor's last pleas to her boyfriend.  She hopes that he will see the truth:  That this girl is not a saint.  She's not what he thinks. She's an actress, and apparently, a pretty good one.

Now this song doesn't only have to apply to those types of sleazy girls that steal your boyfriend.  There are people who can break down romantic ties without being romantically involved themselves.  There are people so brilliant that they can insert small bombs into your guy's belt.  He doesn't know it, but he's carrying an implemented weapon of your destruction.  And all you can do is sing about it, because you've tried over and over to rip that belt off and he just won't let you remove it.

Sometimes words just don't work.  You can't address your audience in the way you wish unless you travel to a larger plane.  Maybe that's why people disapprove of Taylor.  Maybe that's why you have enemies who hate you enough to keep trying to bring you down.  You have to talk on this level.  You have to let those people who love know that they're inserted in the middle of a useless battle.  It's a battle in which you don't even want to be involved.  But it's one that won't end, regardless of how desperately you fight for peace.  In the end, you have to know that even those who you thought loved you most can be dragged away from you.  And this is a risk you take being as twisted and dynamic and complicated as you.

But here lies the chorus.  Why does it seem that people you love always choose the other side?  Why does it seem that they are reluctant to trust you?  What is it about your life that causes you to make enemies right and left just from breathing the air you breathe?  And what is it about certain people that gives them the impetus to torture you indirectly?  What would lead them to place a bomb in the belt of the person you love?  They steal their identity from you because they know that you'll see through the plan.  It's a twisted relationship based on hatred and mutual respect.  You acknowledge each other's brilliance.  And yet you cannot reach a truce.

So what do you hope to gain from stealing more of my ego?  From stealing more of my loyalties?  What do you hope to gain from making me more lonely?  Does it make you more whole?  Does it make you happy?  Why can't you just stay out of my life?  If it affects you, that means I affect you and you'd never admit to that.  So it's either or.  Either admit or resign.  Because the more you destroy me, the stronger I get.  The more you chip away my happiness, the less I settle for being weak.

Because in the end, that bomb may go off.  In the end, you may catalyze something beautiful.  You may ruin something that everyone involved worked super hard to achieve.  But you know "I'll always have the last word."

A crazy rant...Taylor style.