The Posies - "Please Return It"

Disregarding the issue of my writing style in general, am I a terrible blogger? Most assuredly. Updating will never be one of my strong points, and when anything from a terrible heatwave to a pressing deadline looms, goodbye blogging. But the weather is cooler now so here I am with a song from one of my favorite bands, the relatively unknown 90s band from Seattle called The Posies. Lyrical brilliance, amazing melodies and harmonies to go along with those lyrics, and an excellent fusion of sweet pop and post-punk make them a real joy to listen to. This song, "Please Return It," showcases all of the above.



I think the key to understanding this song is to grasp the situation as it is laid out at the beginning of the song when Stringfellow (although Auer joins in throughout the song) sings: "Like a letter, / I just sent it, / please return it, / just forget it." If you have ever been in the grip of a really strong emotion and been compelled to put it into writing (a love letter or a really angry letter come to mind as the paradigmatic instances) and then sent that letter to its intended recipient, and then regretted sending it, I think you can understand the feeling behind this song. In particular there's that time of absolute helplessness after that letter has been sent but before it's been read that this song is about: the feeling of having totally exposed yourself to another and being unable to cover that up again.

Although this feeling is perhaps best captured by that experience with the letter, it corresponds to a much broader range of things than just that, which is why they (and, as I've mentioned, it tends to be a they--the harmony is especially significant here, although I'd have to do more work tracking it to make something more out of it) sing: "When we live the life we live, / it's never ours completely, / not completely." A certain amount of one-sided vulnerability is inevitable in most if not all human interactions, and this is why they catalog a number of different "imbalances" that require a "returning," capturing a surprising range of life: a movie (back in the days of Blockbuster video), a style (something unique that can be stolen which feels like a real violation), a favor (see, not all of them are necessarily bad, although favors can cut both ways), a glance (again, this can be fairly ambiguous), a servant (or server-referring to restaurants or tennis I guess), and a sewer (some things that we throw away we don't want back, but may not have a choice in the matter). The most psychologically acute of these instances, however, has to be the lines: "When you let me live my life, / you didn't do it completely / you were discreet. / Like the year I spent comparing me to you / Please return it." I don't think I have ever seen a more succinct evocation of the way we can lose ourselves to the judgments of other people, to foreign and inappropriate ideals, all by ourselves.

Of course, the real kicker here is that we have to be vulnerable, that the very possibility of legitimately two-sided interactions (the possibility of an "up-side" to all of these downsides) always has the potential to be one-sided. This is not a cheery thought, but it represents a truth that is not without its consolations: at the very least, "In the certainty of friendships you can ask / Please return it / Bring the balance back to you / in returning."