Falling Slowly

Falling slowly 

Eyes that know me 

And I can't go back 

And wounds that take me 

And erase me 

And I'm painted black 

Today was just one of those days. I don't know if it has something to do with hormones or what, but I woke up feeling melancholy, and it never quite went away...

... which set me up quite well for watching the musical "Once" tonight. My roommate and I bought student discount tickets, which were in the farthest row in the balcony. I didn't bother looking up much about what "Once" was about before I went to the show. All I knew was that it had something to do with musicians and lovers.

Well you have suffered enough 

And warred with yourself 

It's time that you won 

There's something about these musical theaters. Not just the fact that tonight, rows and rows in front of me were the many shadows of couples in the dark, resting their heads on the other's shoulders. I think almost every time I'm there, watching the love stories unfold before a backdrop of swelling orchestral music, that repressed part of me begins to stir. It doesn't rear its head often, but there are times when I sit there feeling very small and alone.

So when "Falling Slowly" began to play, something started moving within me. The song was vaguely familiar, like a dream you must have visited before, though I can't pinpoint if I'd actually heard the song before tonight. But the duet made me feel like a bubble about to burst. When it comes to emotions, I am a fortress of ice and steel. But music is the catalyst to emotional reactions, the conductor that helps me tap into that guarded energy source. It's why I write to music, why so many of my blog posts are audio clips or scraps of lyrics. Vulnerable as I already was, there was something about the music of "Once" that nearly had me melting.

I don't know if I was particularly fond of the story itself. The accents made it hard sometimes for me to catch onto key details, and the girl character kind of overlapped with the archetypal Manic Pixie Dream Girl in an annoying way. Some of the dialogue carried the flavor of cringeworthy sound bites from a sappy romance novel. But I do like how the story ends for Girl and Guy, much in the same vein of how I enjoyed the ending to Ai Yazawa's Paradise Kiss series. The music, however, is the best thing about the show.

Take this sinking boat and point it home 

We've still got time 

Raise your hopeful voice 

You have a choice 

You've made it now