I love music. It has been a steadying and vital part of my life. While I am much better than I used to be, I struggled expressing my emotions and even more so understanding them. Music has always been a way for me to tap into my sometimes buried emotions and express the things that have felt the most difficult and made me so vulnerable.
Especially, as a teen, growing up in a very repressive, sanitized, and conforming environment. My feelings were meant to be homogenized and my desires hated. Even more so when you don't have the same kinds of desires as others. I developed a troubling aversion to anything that remotely was associated with sex and an intense hatred of myself. I tried very hard to stay blind to the hope and fear outside.
Duran Duran's song Come Undone, from their 1993 Wedding Album, was especially important to me. The introspective lyrics talk about exposing one’s self to being vulnerable and knowing they are playing with fire being consumed by their desires -- they can’t help themselves. It deftly expressed, the fears of connecting with someone else - I felt I wasn’t capable. The very real anxiety of forming a relationship and the fear that nobody would love me, if they got to know me, made my future seem tenuous. I was faced with a difficult choice at a difficult age, what path would I follow. My desires took me away from a safe and comfortable world but would cause me to hide who I was. I wasn’t prepared. . .my inner child trapped, I felt like I was coming apart at the seams, my heart coming apart at the seams. I cried often.
The song expresses both a honest, mournful intensity, yet asks, hopefully, about a future. With just little time and even a little “crime”, I pushed into the world and rode the wind, as far as the sails of my heart, tearing apart at the seams, could carry me.
Lyrics
Mine, immaculate dream made breath and skin
I've been waiting for you
Signed with a home tattoo
Happy birthday to you was created for you
Can't ever keep from falling apart at the seams
Can I believe you're taking my heart to pieces?
Ah, it'll take a little time
Might take a little crime to come undone
Now we'll try to stay blind to the hope and fear outside
Hey child, stay wilder than the wind and blow me in to cry
Who do you need?
Who do you love?
When you come undone
Who do you need?
Who do you love?
When you come undone
Words, playing me deja vu
Like a radio tune, I swear I've heard before
Chill, is it something real?
Or the magic I'm feeding off your fingers
Can't ever keep from falling apart at the seams
Can I believe you're taking my heart to pieces?
Lost, in a snow filled sky
We'll make it alright to come undone
Now we'll try to stay blind to the hope and fear outside
Hey child, stay wilder than the wind and blow me in to cry
Who do you need?
Who do you love?
When you come undone
Who do you need?
Who do you love?
When you come undone (can't ever keep from falling apart)
Who do you need?
Who do you love?
When you come undone (can't ever keep from falling apart)
Who do you need?
Who do you love? (Can't ever keep from falling apart)
Who do you love?
When you come undone
