"All of This and Nothing" is a series of weekly posts, each about one song I really love, by an artist I haven't featured in the previous This Year, Portions For Foxes, or Better Things series. It alternates between Obscure and Famous songs; feel free to argue either way if you're so inclined. See the introduction for more.
I'm back to Famous this week - though you may have to be from my generation to know this song. It's not in a sound that's been popular, or major, or central any time in the past thirty years. But, then, it wasn't a lot like everything else in music at the time, either.
This week, it's time to Fade Into You, the most famous song by Mazzy Star, which came as a quiet, calming counterpoint amid a sea of grunge in 1993.
The sound of the song is quiet and contemplative - that's the way Mazzy Star was - but that doesn't mean the meaning is happy and positive.
I want to hold the hand inside you
I want to take the breath that's true
I look to you and I see nothing
I look to you to see the truth
You may notice there's a lot of "want" at the beginning of this song. As it goes on, there will not be nearly as much "is" or "going to be." This is a song about something that didn't happen, or didn't happen in the right way, that the singer is extricating herself from and looking back at. She knows what happened, even if the person she's singing to doesn't get it at all.
Fade into you
I think it's strange you never knew
This is a quiet, contemplative song - about something broken or gone or lost...or maybe never really there at all, despite what the singer wanted. You can decide which.
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