Bruises Before Bed (Or Why You Didn’t Answer)

This week I was driving to work, bored with sports and political radio, I switched over to some easy listening and lo and behold heard two great songs!  One I’d heard before and the other I don’t remember hearing before.
Anyway, they were both so terrific I immediately committed to remembering their catch lines (not all that easy for someone who’s getting on in years) and wrote them down when I got to work so I could listen to them when I got home.  (We are not allowed to listen to internet music at work…)
The two songs are:  “Bruises“, performed by Train (featuring Ashley Monroe) and “Should’ve Gone To Bed“, performed by Plain White T’s.  They are both easy listing cross-overs between Pop and Modern Country sounds.  Very enjoyable with ear-candy / stick in your head hooks.  Bruises is another classic song about boy and girl meeting ten years later and asking about what’s been happening.  The interesting thing is although there is an obvious “connection” happening in the song, both are “once burned, twice shy” and nothing may happen except the “promise” to keep in touch.  My favorite verse is:
These bruises Make for better conversation Loses the vibe that separates It’s good to let you in again You’re not alone and how you’ve been Everybody loses We all got bruises We all got bruises
The second song (“Should’ve Gone To Bed“) is the new one for me.  On the radio, it sounds as if it’s a song about regrets and calling some number of “Ex’es” after the relationships are over.  In the “official” video, it appears to be a song about a man who’s afraid to tell his girlfriend how he feels until he’s on the verge of losing her.  …And then they make up (to presumably live happily ever after).  It surprised me to come away with the two completely different reactions to the same song depending on if you were listening to it, listening to it and following the lyrics, or watching the official video.  I guess the line which strikes me is most of us have broken up in our relationships, tried to move on and then when there’s a problem (or were just feeling lonely), we pick up the phone and call the “Ex”.  Sometimes they answer and the cycle starts again.  Sometimes they answer but the cycle doesn’t restart.  Sometimes it ends just as badly as before;  and sometimes everyone is spared the drama because the other party just doesn’t answer the phone or return the call.  Being human, we assume it’s because they don’t want to talk to us anymore.
Someday the geezer’s among us will be telling the kids how (in our day) people didn’t have caller ID or voice mail or home answering machines, and sometimes relationships didn’t work out – not because one or both sides didn’t reach out to the other to make up – but simply because one party wasn’t there to answer the call.  The concept seems “funny” in this age of always-on connectivity…  Sometimes things just happen (or don’t happen) for no particular reason.
As always, check out the lyrics off of my Poems page, then go listen to the recordings – and in this instance, make sure you go find the “official” video for “Should’ve Gone To Bed“.  Let me know if you got the same reaction to the lyrics versus the song versus the video.  And remember to support the Arts in your local community.
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On This Day In:
2012	Extra Gears
2011	Say What?
2010	Hello Frogs…