Listen to Me When Your Heart Breaks

The Heart of the Matter by India Arie

"It's about forgiveness…" This is absolutely the best phrase in the entire song. Basically, the song is about a woman who got a phone call from her friend telling her that her ex-lover has already found a new love.

My favorite line actually has a universal truth in it. Breakups are always about forgiveness, even when there's no love anymore.

Forgiveness for the hurt we cause each other.

Forgiveness for the wrongs we have done to each other.

Forgiveness for the things we could have done but failed to do.

It's about forgiving the person who has hurt you the most. It's about moving on. It's about not giving up the hope that someday somehow, we will find somebody new, somebody we may not anymore love as deep as we have loved someone before but somebody who deserves all the love we can give from the placed back pieces of our broken hearts.

Rise by Gabrielle

I'm not really sure if this song could actually help me get over a breakup, but it's worth listening to. The chorus goes "Look at my life; look at my heart.I have seen them fall apart, and now I'm ready to rise again."

They call it a breakup for a reason. When two people decide to go on separate ways, there are always devastating effects on at least one of them. When you go through a break up, it's not just the relationship that get's broken.

Hearts. Dreams. Lives. They all get broken too.

Unfortunately, wallowing in self despair and depression won't help. No matter how much your heart is broken, the world does not stop for your grief. The best we can do is to look into ourselves, find our inner strength, realize that even we are hurting, the future is still on our side. A day will come when our hurts will heal. When we are ready to rise again, we will find that, in love, no one ever wins without losing a few things along the way.

Doin’Just Fine by Boyz 2 Men

This song may not always make you feel better, but you'll have one good cry when you listen to it. Everybody needs to have a hell of a good cry when they go through a break up. Everybody needs to be able to get it all out of their system.

Breakups are hard. Songs usually work as a catalyst to getting over breakups or just to help you find it in yourself to take a good look at the relationship and realize if the break up will someday be a blessing in disguise or if the relationship is actually still worth fighting for.

I Miss Karaoke Nights

I don't even need convincing. I love karaoke, especially karaoke nights at home. The three songs above are just the ones that I always sing every time there's a karaoke party. However, that does not mean I don't sing anything else.

What about you? What are the songs that make it to your list? *wink*

Karyn White by Superwoman

I've loved this song since I was young. I'm not a fan of its lyrics, but I know I can sing this song.

Amy Grant by That’s What Love is For

Who wouldn't love Amy Grant, right?

Dido by White Flag

This is probably less difficult to sing than the others. Singing this reminds me of a friend I had from the first company I ever worked for.

Music Video Can Never Get Gayer Than This (I Love It)

Basketcase by Culture Serial Killers (taken from Youtube)

The Explanation

For today, I want to explain the reason behind yesterday’s poem, “Found.” I feel that a lot of people may not really appreciate the poem because the message of the poem was not really laid out in simple words, like what I always do with my other poems.

Wednesday afternoon, while at work, I was listening to this song by the APO Hiking Society called “When I Met You.” For those who are not from the Philippines, I’m sure you don’t know who the APO Hiking Society are. Well, they are a legendary trio here in the Philippines. They have become a big part of Philippine music history. They have popularized, written, and produced some of the best songs that the Philippine music has ever known.

Their song, “When I Met You,” talks about the kind of love that changes a person. The first few lines go like this: “There I was, an empty piece of a shell, just minding my own word without even knowing what love and life were all about.” Then all the emptiness was filled when he found the girl who made all the difference. This is the chorus of the song: “You gave me a reason for my being, and I love what I’m feeling. You gave me a meaning to my life, yes I’ve gone beyond existing. And it all began when I met you.”

It’s a very beautiful song. It does not have just the poetic lyrics, it also has the melody that people can’t help but sing along with. I have loved that song for as long as I can remember. However, I suddenly thought to myself that not all loves happen like that. Some kinds of love start by being hesitant, repressed, even learned. Sometimes, we are not empty shells who are just waiting for the right person to listen to our hidden melody beyond the emtiness. Sometimes, we are the shining star that people can only look up to. Sometimes, we are achievers who are not searching or waiting for love at all. But love still finds its way to us. Sometimes, we do not even realize that we are already in love with somebody until the second that we are torn away from the person.

This is why I had the irrevocable urge to write a poem. I wanted to write a poem about a love the did not make the skies any bluer, the roses any sweeter, the birds any more melodious. I wanted to write a poem about a love that was simple, that never changed anything at all, that never made things better. I wanted to write a poem about a love that was just as simple as love can be.

The poem is about a love that did not make the sun shine any brighter. It was about a love that did not bring any sunshine at all. But during the dark of night, was always there, to hold you close, to keep you warm, to make sure you are safe. It is about a love that did not bring springtime, or any of the beautiful things. But it was a love that was constant and consistent whatever season you may find yourself in. I was about a love that was not new at all. It was not something new. It was a love that was familiar. A love that has always been there for as long as you had knwoledge of the word. It was a poem about a love that did not make two halves whole. It did not bind two people as one heart and one soul. No, these two people still had their own heart and soul, but they had the heart and sould that existed only for each other. Basically, I wrote a poem about a love that was not shiny, new, and beautiful. It was a love that was simple, familiar, and unchanging.

Weekend in New England (reposted from my other blog)

Probably the saddest song I’ve ever heard is Barry Manilow’s “Weekend in New England”. I was listening to Pandora earlier when the song played. It’s not just the lyrics that make it sad. The melody of the song itself is already a tear-jerker. I don’t know exactly what it is that makes me sad too. I actually don’t identify with the song because the story does not apply to me at all. However, merely listening to it makes me want to stop and think only of sad thoughts .

The lyrics are not nearly as heartbroken as “Somewhere Down the Road”. This song holds so much uncertainty, but for the other song, goodye was really inevitable. Still, this song is really the saddest. There’s a line in the song that says, “last night I wave goodbye, now it seems years”. I think it just shows that whenever we are separated from the person we love, the time we spend being apart feels so long.

So many of us have been through this. Situations may be different, but we have all experienced the pain of being away from the ones we love. Yes, it feels like eternity. Sometimes, we fight with those we love, and we need some time apart. Sometimes, we need to be away from them for a bigger reason than a mere fight. Whatever the reason is, time always feels so slow. The waiting feels like eternity. Waiting seems to be the most painful part when you’re away.

Another line from the song that I like goes like this: “time in New England took me away to long, rocky beaches and you by the bay.” I also think this line is true, and this happens to almost all of us. When we try so much to be away from people, to think or move on, we get swept away by the new places that we go to. The new things and new faces we come across take our mind off the things that we are running away from. But after all the thrill, underneath all the chaos, we always go back to that one person who can comfort us and make us happy.

When we take a time off, we try so hard to forget. We try to forget the hurts, the people, the responsibilities. In doing so, we fail to notice that what always brings us back are the things that we run away from. When we lose ourselves too much in the effort of moving on, the things that keep us on the ground are always those things that we don’t expect to do so. Then, when we realize what we really need, we always come running back. Sometimes, we return to things that have already become unfamiliar, things that have slowly evolved into something else during our absence. Sometimes, we go back and find out that there’s already nothing there, that nothing’s waiting for us anymore.

This is what makes the song such a sad one. It’s the uncertainty of things. We can never tell what happens tomorrow, or even a couple of minutes from now. We can’t ever foretell what’s in store for us, and I believe that’s the scariest and saddest part of this life.

To balance it, the song is not totally just a waste of tears. If we understand the lyrics, we will find that even if the song cries out loud with sadness, it is also a hopeful song. The song is hopeful because even if the singer is not sure when he will be reunited with his love, he knows that they will still be together in the future, but he’s just not sure when that time is.

As for us real people, this is what makes us move one with our lives. It is the hope that someday, everything will happen in its own time. If we are far from the person we love right now, we all have this hope that someday soon, we will be with that person again. Yes, love leaves, and sometimes love stays out of our reach. But there is always one thing that makes us keep believeing in it. It is the hope that love will never be forever out of grasp, and this is why love songs are always a hit.