The Song I'm Loving Today

Song for Zula (Phosphorescent)

I first heard a snippet of this song on my favorite pop culture podcast, Pop Culture Happy Hour.  My first several dozen listens were to the studio version (linked above), which may still be my favorite.  However, the live version from Pitchfork Music Festival (linked here, with a video below) is also wickedly good.  There's a radio show version here, although I'm not as impressed with it.  I do like that you can see the many, many musicians, but the song loses the slightly haunting quality that the studio version has.

And beware, this song is not a happy one.  It's not sad, exactly; melancholy is probably the best word I can come up with for it.



Some say love is a burning thing,
Say it makes a fiery ring.
Oh but I know love as a fading thing
Just as fickle as a feather in a stream.

See honey, I saw love,
You see, it came to me.
It put its face up to my face so I could see.
Yeah, then I saw love disfigure me
Into something I'm not recognizing.

You see, the cage it called,
I said, "come on in."
I will not open myself up this way again.
Nor lay my face to the soil, nor my teeth to the sand.
I will not lay like this for days now upon end.

You will not see me fall,
Nor see me struggle to stand,
To be acknowledged by some touch from his gnarled hands.
You see, the cage it called,
I said, "come on in."
I will not open myself up this way again.

You see the moon is bright
In that treetop night.
I see the shadows that we cast in the cold, clean light.
My feet are gold, and my heart is white,
And we race out on the desert plains all night.
See honey, I am not some broken thing.
I do not lay here in the dark waiting for thee.
No my heart is wild and my feet are bright,
And I am racing out on the desert plains all night.

So some say love
They say it's a burning thing,
They say it's makes some fiery ring.
Oh but I know love as a caging thing,
Just a killer come to call from some awful dream.
Oh, now you folks, you come to see,
You just stand there in the glass looking at me.
But my heart is wild and my bones are steam,
I could kill you with my bare hands if I was free.