Tim Kasher has made a career of leading the emo revolution. Or at least the sensitive male, screaming at the top of his lungs about what horrible people women can be and how they’ve all wrecked his life, then made his life better and then ruined it again. His band Cursive is discordant and angry and perverse. The Good Life, from which this song comes, is the kinder gentler version of Tim Kasher, but still focuses on that classic male/female relationship gone to pot. This song in particular describes the whole lifecycle of a relationship in mere minutes with devastating accuracy and a wonderfully apt approach that makes it a total classic in my book:
The first time that I met her
I was throwing up in the ladies room stall
She asked me if I needed anything
I said, “I think I spilled my drink”
And that’s how it started
(Or so I’d like to believe)
She took me to her mother’s house
Outside of town where the stars hang down
She said she’d never seen someone so lost
I said I’d never felt so found
And then I kissed her on the cheek
And so she kissed me on the mouth
The spring was popping daises up
Around rusted trucks and busted lawn chairs
We moved into a studio in Council Bluffs
To save a couple bucks
Where the mice came out at night
Neighbors were screaming all the time
We’d make love in the afternoons
To Chelsea Girls and Bachelor #2
I’d play for her some songs I wrote
She’d joke and say I’m shooting through the roof
I’d say, “They’re all for you, dear
I’ll write the album of the year”
And I know she loved me then
I swear to God she did
It was the way she’d bite my lower lip
And push her hips against my hips
And dig her nails so deep into my skin
The first time that I met her
I was convinced I had finally found the one
She was convinced I was under the influence
Of all those drunken romantics
I was reading Fante at the the time
I had Bukowski on my mind
She got a job at Jacob’s
Serving cocktails to the local drunks
Against her will, I fit the the bill
I perched down at the end of the bar
She said, “Space is not just a place for stars
I gave you an inch, you want a house with a yard”
And I know she loved me once
But those days are done
She used to call me every day
From a pay phone on her break for lunch
Just to say she can’y wait to come home
The last time that I saw her
She was picking through which records were hers
Her clothes were packed in boxes
With some pots and pans and books and a toaster
Just then a mouse scurried across the floor
We started laughing until it didn’t hurt
We started laughing until it didn’t hurt
We started laughing until it didn’t hurt
We started laughing until it didn’t hurt
We started laughing until it didn’t hurt