Early Magnetic Fields playing “Strange Powers” to a horrible audience in 1993.
Stephin Merritt gets pissed off at the end.
Oh he’s so cute at the end.
an essay on why “give me back my dreams” is the best broken hearted song ever.
No secret to any of you how I haven’t been taking my break up very well, and I keep turning to music to help. The only problem is most songs just don’t “get it”. I relate to plenty of them, sure there’s the bruno mars song that’s so popular, or the fuck you song, I could relate to any fucking break up song on the radio for christs sakes, But for me there’s still something missing, something about these lyrics just don’t get “it”, and I listened to many more songs with the same theme, You fucked me over, I hate what you did to me. I still love you though!
And then I heard “Give me back my dreams” buy the 6ths and I understood why I couldn’t get it with the other songs. The other songs have pride, the other songs are trying to remember the worst parts of this person, to bad mouth them,
Gave you all I had and you tossed it in the trash
You tossed it in the trash, you did
To give me all your love is all I ever ask
These songs wanted something from that person. They pretty much all say “WHY DIDN’T YOU LOVE ME? I GAVE YOU EVERYTHING!”
Then you have a girl like me, who fell in love with a boy and let him know. From that point on the tables turned and nothing was ever the same. He claimed to love me, and when he said he didn’t I didn’t get mad, I didn’t hate him. Because I still loved him. So we dated for I don’t know how much longer and had a conversation where the main topic was the fact I wasn’t in this to be loved. I didn’t give a DAMN if I was loved. I loved him and that’s all that mattered.
The lyrics to “give me back my dreams” are
Give me back my dreams
I’ve been counting these sheeps
Since I can’t remember when
Give me back my sleep
I’ll be dreaming of you till I wake up crying again
I have lain awake through the longest hours
Wondering whether to cry or scream
You can take my heart
It was always yours
Just give me back my dreams
When the clock strikes three, I don’t care anymore about you or anything
When the clock strikes four, I could sell my soul just to hear my telephone ring
You don’t have to talk to me the way we used to talk for hours
We don’t have to talk at all, but may I send you flowers?
This is not a song about greed, this is not a song about pride or trying to even get over something. This is a song where the person can’t get this person out of their head, awake or asleep. It seems to juxtapose the Magnetic fields song “strange powers” as the dreams your love shows up in that song are amazing! in “Give me back my dreams” you’re just reminded of the loss you can’t bare. This song doesn’t want to hurt them, It just wants one night of sleep where they are not haunted by the person who no longer needs them. It’s the point where you’ll stay up until 4AM because you can’t decide to stay awake with the pain of loss, or sleep and for a few hours have them again, only to awake they they’re still gone. This song doesn’t even really want the person back, All it wants is to send them flowers, whether they talk to it or not. That’s love, you don’t care about what you’re given, you just want to give to this person. no matter what they did to you, no matter how many times they smashed your heart into a million pieces then laughed as you tried to pick them up. You just want them to be happy. Sleepless nights or not.
