There is something in the guitar line of this song. Its backing vocals, too. They pull me back to something from the 90s. From the years when I was a teenager. I cannot put my finger on it.
When I first heard Michael Kiwanuka’s Cold Little Heart a decade ago, not long after it came out, I was riding the bus to work on a cloudy day in Seattle. I did not think much about the lyrics then. It was the melody, the mood of it. After hearing it a few more times, I was sure I understood it. It was about a romantic relationship. On the surface, the lyrics could not be clearer.
Last week, on a sleepless night, at 2 a.m., in my mid-forties, it came back to me on TV. It was the first time I watched the music video.
“Did you ever want it
Did you want it bad
Oh my, it tears me apart”
It is as simple and as complex as a song can be at the same time. Watching the video, there is another story on the surface: a kid grieving the loss of his father. That may very well be the story. Maybe that was what I was supposed to see.
Instead, what I saw was one person split across time.
It is probably the stage of life I am in, or the state of mind I was in at that moment. I was left with one word in me after those six minutes and twenty seconds:
Disappointment.
The disappointment in oneself for not growing up to be the person they once imagined.
“Bleeding, I’m bleeding
My cold little heart
Oh I, I can’t stand myself”
The video opens with a man in a car. He is in pain. His hand is on his heart. The car he was driving has spun out and come to a sudden stop across the lanes, facing the wrong way. Tire marks from the abrupt spin are on the road. Hazards on. The passenger door is wide open.
Then a teenage boy gets into the car, sits on the passenger side, and looks the man in the eye.
His face makes it clear. He wasn’t expecting the boy.
The scenes that follow are mostly the boy and the man driving, walking, and hanging around in a working-class neighborhood. It is a cold and gray day. No leaves on the trees. A storm is coming.
They both have sadness in their eyes. Sometimes we see them alone. The boy walks around the streets, at times bursting suddenly into dance. The man seems to have his body here and his mind elsewhere. There is a distance in his eyes.
In the scenes where they are together, they are happy. The man teaching the boy how to drive in the very same car. Washing dishes together. Eating takeout on the trunk at sunset.
It is not clear whether these are memories, images of a future the boy had in mind, or the longing of a man for a boy he never had. What was clear to me at that moment was that it was a relationship, one that was or could have been, that needed both to believe in it and put effort into it. The lyrics made it clearer to me.
“In my heart, in this cold heart
I can live or I can die
I believe if I just try
You believe, in you and I”
It is a reconciliation.
One’s younger self, carrying all the hopes for the person one might become.
And one’s middle-aged self, confronting the reality of who one has become, and how little, if any, of that image one has lived up to.
By many measures, I have had a successful life. I was raised with the teaching of şükran, that one should be appreciative of what they have been given, because there are many who were not so lucky. While I live by that, this thing I feel, here at this point in my life, is about something else.
Yes, I built things. Useful at times. I helped some. I guided many less experienced professionals. It wasn’t all for nothing, I want to believe. But was it enough?
It is a nagging feeling that has been sitting on my chest like an elephant for many years now. It renders a nice walk in a park, a day at the beach, a trip to a distant place, a nice dinner with friends a little less meaningful and a bit empty.
How many more of these will I need to experience? And how much more will I consume before I do enough good in this world? What will it take for me to feel alive again? To feel my heart beating in my chest?
“We can try to hide it
It’s all the same
I’ve been losing you
One day at a time”
At the finale, all instruments come to a full stop. Except the acoustic guitar Michael is playing.
It is the same scene. The car is in the middle of the road. The boy gets into the car again. The scene plays out exactly the same. He makes the same move with his head, trying to make the same eye contact with the man.
Except this time, the man is not conscious. His head has fallen forward.
The scene cuts to black, then to the outro. The boy is watching the sky, his head leaned way back on the passenger side, as the car moves toward the same neighborhood, on the same day. The window is rolled down on his side. And Michael wraps it up with deep sadness and defeat in his voice:
“Maybe this time I can be strong
But since I know who I am
I’m probably wrong
Maybe this time I can go far
Thinking about where I’ve been
Ain’t helping me start”
I stayed motionless for a while. Then wiped my tears, turned off the TV, stood up, and went to bed.
As I lay in bed, waiting to fall asleep, I told myself that tomorrow was going to be a different day.
Beautifully written. You put into words what we have all felt.