Trapped in lament/ to the poet's core

Every so often, I return to the Emmylou Harris album Wrecking Ball. It's not really my kind of music, but it was a staple of my childhood, one of the rotating set of CDs my sister and I would demand be played in the mornings before we went to school, so that we could dance in the living room, background noise, lyrics we could not interpret nor understand. (One of the very on brand things about us as children: we were, and remain, early risers, and would generally spend an hour or so every school morning dancing in the living room before heading off.)

As an adult, I actually started listening to the lyrics, and realised what a masterpiece the album was. It's the sort of music you could not write as a young woman: the songs are the story of an older woman, looking back on her life, a deep well of melancholy, regret, and acceptance of all the pain, loss, joy and grief that came before. It's not the kind of album male musicians make, decrying the inevitable hedonism and selling out and loss of authenticity that accompanied their rise to fame. Indeed, it's the exact opposite, turning inwards with a kind of painful honest authenticity, the music howling and crying like a storm in the desert.

And the lyrics! Oh, the lyrics.

"Where Will I Be" (Watch on YouTube)

The album opens with 'Where Will I Be', cutting me under my armour:

Don't waste your breath
Don't waste your heart
Don't blister your heels
Running in the dark

I walked to the river
And I walked to the rim
I walked through the teeth of the reaper's grin
I walked to you rolled up in wire
To the other side of desire

Or the eponymous track:

"Wrecking Ball" (Watch on YouTube)

My life's an open book, you read it on the radio indeed.

I have always lost myself in song lyrics, and this album is just ... I love it so very much.