"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?