Last night, I had the plonor (pleasure! honor!) of meeting Nina and Louise, the two gals from Veruca Salt, a 90’s band that SHAPED AND CHANGED MY LIFE in high school. I adored them. Thoroughly geeking out, I shouted my memories at them over brussel sprouts: I saw them open for Bush. I transcribed their lyrics into my journal and felt understood. I played their CDs in my Beretta until I scratched them to death and then I went and bought  new ones and also scratched those to death.  Today, they are hot, brilliant moms still making music. I can’t quite articulate yet why getting to meet them was so meaningful, besides the obvious reasons, but it just — was. Perhaps because they wrote songs that helped me process my feelings — feelings I can’t even remember why I had, or what triggered them: Loneliness, longing, apathy that felt somehow profound. That’s exactly what a good song does. It expresses what we can’t. And so instead of wasting more words, instead, here are some of their lyrics, that I would listen to over and over and also over:

When you’ve had enough
When you’ve got it bad enough
And you can’t let go
When it comes to blows
And you start to overflow
But you can’t get home
It’s a subtle kind of cruel
It taps my spine
Here I’m drawing a line
I’m asking you please
Don’t you wanna be
Happy with me?
Don’t you wanna be
Happy with me?
I’m afraid if you don’t come around soon
I’ll turn sadder than you ever were
I know the loneliness is worse
You’ve gotta try…
December’s all alone
And he’s calling me on the phone
But he sounds so cold…
He says he loves me so
But how would I ever know?
Certain words grow old
It’s a vicious kind of catch
It sides me blind
Now I’m out of my mind
I wanna scream
Don’t you wanna be
Happy with me?
Don’t you wanna be
Happy with me?
I’m afraid if you don’t come around soon
I’ll turn sadder than you ever were
The loneliness is worse
You’ve gotta try…
Love liked me long ago
It had a way of making everyone the same