This Year: 1995

"This Year" is a series of weekly posts, each about one song from one year of my life. See the introduction for more.

Another sad one for 1995: I have a type. Another break-up song, another slow, gauzy stroll through unhappiness.

Like Dirty Work, way back near the beginning of this series, this is a song about a lover who feels powerless. She wants to walk out, but she just can't.

Where I live, 

There's this lady

Who walks everywhere on her hands.

She don't trust where her feet want to take her

The song is Judas My Heart by Belly, and I think this was a consensual relationship. I think. But it's really close.

The singer is stuck in this relationship, which is entirely negative: the title calls it a betrayal of her heart. And this person is coming around again, and she doesn't seem to be able to stop him or keep him away.

I said I thought this was consensual, that this is a love gone wrong, a lover who's just bad for the singer. I mostly think that. Mostly.

This is the room where we met (not in here).

This is the dress I had on.

That's where I have doubts. Especially when she insists this is something he did to her. She has no agency, no control, and will have no control if/when he comes back again, which he may be doing right now, as she sings the song.

It's a quiet song, mournful - the pace is slow, like a dirge the singer is singing for her lost self. And there's no sign in the song that this is going to get better. There's no way out of this. It's an eternal now, the way a great song can be: one emotion, one feeling, one situation, a whole world in a nutshell.

Can I get a witness when you Judas my heart again?