Song #56: Melissa Etheridge - If I Wanted To (off Yes I Am - 1993)
I was an angry, confused, intense little girl. One mistake I’ve made practically since birth is that I always assume I’m wiser and more experienced than I am. I relate on the surface to songs and characters that are entirely too deep for me to really understand. I love girlpop, I think, because the songs simplify universal experiences. I never consider myself the lowest common denominator when it comes to psychology or emotions, but who does? Most people are, though. That’s WHY popular music is popular.
For the longest time I considered myself a bit of a robot, emotionally. I figured I could use logic and feel the way I SHOULD feel about someone. I wanted to get over a breakup? Over it. A friend stabbed me in the back? No big deal. ~Logic~ tells me that he wasn’t trying as hard as I was, and that my friend had an irritating laugh. Good riddance.
It doesn’t work that way, obviously.
I first heard Melissa Etheridge’s music on the radio one morning when waking up for school. I think the song was Come To My Window and I was enthralled. Everything was raw. Her voice was so raspy that I assumed it hurt her to sing. There was no google or anything, so I phoned the station and had to ask what the song was.
I asked my mom to buy the album for me and she gave me a puzzled look but a week later I owned an album that would change my early life. Yes I Am is a rock album with as much heart and vulnerability as it had sass and power. I loved Come To My Window but it was deemed “inappropriate” for me to sing it at Brownie talent show. It was then that I realized for the first time that there was something in this music worth censoring. I knew nothing about Etheridge’s sexuality or politics, but in my youthful naivety I thought I knew everything. Learning otherwise was a big blow to my well-developed ego.
If I Wanted To is a great mirror for my own Vulcan phase. Trying to convince yourself that you are entirely in charge of your emotions is both immature and doomed. You can’t convince yourself to love someone, and you can’t argue your heart into disregarding someone you do love. It’s akin to doing all these impossible things mentioned in the song - turning sparks to ice, reversing the aging process or controlling global politics as a leftist lesbian. I have tried to convince myself of many things this year, most of which just needed time anyway. Making lists of someone’s flaws is a bad way to stop yourself from falling for them. A few good memories and a certain comfort level are not reasons to stay with someone after you’ve emotionally checked out of a relationship.
Things are always more difficult than logic or willpower dictate - I would know; it was a hard lesson to learn over and over again.
