Marina Marina - Music in My Ears

Since we have been talking about the emotions that songs evoke in us when we listen to them (and of DIAMONDS), I am going to comment on this topic once again. I am the kind of person who finds the silence uncomfortable, when I’m not listening to music. Back when I lived at home my mum would try to get me to turn off my music when I was doing my homework, but she hardly ever succeeded. Especially the invention of teeny tiny mp3-players made her ardent task all the more difficult. Now that I live on my own (disregarding my roommate, who frankly does not care if I listen to music during my work as long as the base doesn’t knock her books off the shelves), music is with me every second of my life. Lately, I’ve been in love with a young woman of Welsh/Greek (exotic!) descent named Marina Diamandis whose artist name is Marina and the Diamonds. I especially love two of her songs: “Obsessions” and “I am not a Robot”. Especially the lyrics for “Obsessions” have a very special feel to them:

Sunday, wake up, give me a cigarette.
Last night's love affair is looking vulnerable in my bed
Silk sheet, blue dawn, Colgate, tongue warm
Won't you quit your crying? I can't sleep
One minute I'm a little sweetheart
And next minute you are an absolute creep

We've got obsessions
I want to wipe out all the sad ideas
that come to me when I am holding you
We've got obsessions
All you ever think about are sick ideas involving me, involving you

Supermarket, what packet of crackers to pick?
They're all the same, one brand, one name, but really they're not
Look, look, just choose something quick
People are staring, time to come quick in
Cheeks are on fire; just choose something, something, something
Pressure overwhelming
Next minute I am turning out of the door, facing one week without food
A day, a day when things are pretty bad
Don't let it make you feel sad,
the crackers were probably bad luck anyway
Can't let your cold heart be free
When you act like you've got an OCD

We've got obsessions
I want to erase every nasty thought
that bugs me every day of every week
We've got obsessions
You never tell me what it is
that makes you strong and what it is that makes you weak.

We've got obsessions
I want to erase every nasty thought
that bugs me every day of every week.
We've got obsessions
You never told me what it was
that made you strong and what it was that made you weak
Makes you weak, makes you weak,
make you weak, make you weak, make you weak
Make you

Sunday, wake up, give me a cigarette
Last night's love affair is looking vulnerable again

The way she just describes a banal situation like buying crackers and the stress that our daily obsessions may bring with it make me feel melancholic. Simple things in life can just stand in our way; mostly we cause those little things by ourselves. It’s us who make our relationships dysfunctional. It’s us, who hurt each other perpetually, not out of big emotions but out of laziness, lack of thoughtfulness. I feel that the line “Last night’s love affair is looking vulnerable in my bed” is enormously beautiful. It conveys a sense of fragility that lies in those short encounters, a sense of being able to hurt each other in moments of such emotional and physical proximity, even though we are two complete strangers. “I want to wipe out all the sad ideas that come to me when I am holding you” shows that she is clearly talking about a relationship that has gone down the gurgler already in which none of the partners is happy. Like “Hurt”, this song does not offer the slightest bit of consolation. There is no way out of this state of mutual disregard and disdain. Maybe just because they are to lazy, maybe because they have gotten used to each other, maybe because they are afraid of the world outside of their sterile little relationship bubble. Besides all this, the song is really beautiful, soundwise.

Enjoy:

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