track two - without you i'm nothing
the first time i heard placebo, i hated them. i continued to do so a good 8 years on until i discovered the Sleeping With Ghosts album, and more importantly the song "english summer rain." but that is for another post...
after spending a month solid with only that album on repeat, i decided to branch out - and buy the other placebo albums. starting with Without You... as i had heard a rumor it was the end all, be all of placebo albums.
i was at a weird place in my life at the time... a good one, but very surreal. i had just metamorphosized (is that the word?)from a fat girl to one suddenly very comfortable in new skin. i had just freed myself from a near 4-year relationship with someone i loved very much, but who was definitely travelling a different path from myself. i was living on my own for the first time in quite a while.
and with that came a fresh sexual liberation.
and THAT is where this song takes me.
every time i hear it, i feel that chill just beneath the skin. you have had your eye on that one all night, all month, for years. and suddenly their eyes are finally looking in your direction. and no one has to say, "hey you wanna go somewhere and romp around all night?" it's just there.
and it's fun while it lasts. and sometimes it stays that way. and sometimes it doesn't.
the song is so dark and so sexy. and about drugs i am pretty sure, but that's irrelevant. a song, i have learned in all these 28 years, really can mean anything it wants to. and this one is all about those beautiful ups and downs of sexual freedom.
the opening notes are like the first bit of sunlight pouring through the window the morning after... that moment when half-asleep either the panic starts to set in, or the excitement that this thing happened and now is either the time to sneak out from under the covers and make tea or to sneak back under them to start it all over again...
"Strange infatuation seems to grace the evening tide
I'll take it by your side
Such imagination seems to help the feeling slide
I'll take it by your side
Instant correlation sucks and breeds a pack of lies
I'll take it by your side
Over saturation curls the skin and tans the hide
I'll take it by your side"
sometimes they lose their minds after. sometimes you do. sometimes nothing. sometimes you drive them back to their cars and they move on. sometimes to the other side of the country. sometimes you're relieved, and sometimes you wish you could live that night before over and over again until your flesh is raw.
"I'm unclean a libertine
And every time you vent your spleen
I seem to lose the power of speech
You're slipping slowly from my reach
You grow me like an evergreen
You've never seen the lonely me at all"
and sometimes just nothing.
on a side note, i was thrilled to learn that there existed another version of this song on which my beloved David Bowie duets with Brain Molko. until i heard it.
i could never imagine that bowie could ruin anything, but damn if he doesn't negate the entire effect here...
after spending a month solid with only that album on repeat, i decided to branch out - and buy the other placebo albums. starting with Without You... as i had heard a rumor it was the end all, be all of placebo albums.
i was at a weird place in my life at the time... a good one, but very surreal. i had just metamorphosized (is that the word?)from a fat girl to one suddenly very comfortable in new skin. i had just freed myself from a near 4-year relationship with someone i loved very much, but who was definitely travelling a different path from myself. i was living on my own for the first time in quite a while.
and with that came a fresh sexual liberation.
and THAT is where this song takes me.
every time i hear it, i feel that chill just beneath the skin. you have had your eye on that one all night, all month, for years. and suddenly their eyes are finally looking in your direction. and no one has to say, "hey you wanna go somewhere and romp around all night?" it's just there.
and it's fun while it lasts. and sometimes it stays that way. and sometimes it doesn't.
the song is so dark and so sexy. and about drugs i am pretty sure, but that's irrelevant. a song, i have learned in all these 28 years, really can mean anything it wants to. and this one is all about those beautiful ups and downs of sexual freedom.
the opening notes are like the first bit of sunlight pouring through the window the morning after... that moment when half-asleep either the panic starts to set in, or the excitement that this thing happened and now is either the time to sneak out from under the covers and make tea or to sneak back under them to start it all over again...
"Strange infatuation seems to grace the evening tide
I'll take it by your side
Such imagination seems to help the feeling slide
I'll take it by your side
Instant correlation sucks and breeds a pack of lies
I'll take it by your side
Over saturation curls the skin and tans the hide
I'll take it by your side"
sometimes they lose their minds after. sometimes you do. sometimes nothing. sometimes you drive them back to their cars and they move on. sometimes to the other side of the country. sometimes you're relieved, and sometimes you wish you could live that night before over and over again until your flesh is raw.
"I'm unclean a libertine
And every time you vent your spleen
I seem to lose the power of speech
You're slipping slowly from my reach
You grow me like an evergreen
You've never seen the lonely me at all"
and sometimes just nothing.
on a side note, i was thrilled to learn that there existed another version of this song on which my beloved David Bowie duets with Brain Molko. until i heard it.
i could never imagine that bowie could ruin anything, but damn if he doesn't negate the entire effect here...
posted by trixievw at 2:10 PM
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