Currently listening to...

..."Missing" by Everything But The Girl (previously here), a song that makes me nostalgic and heartsick every time I hear it.

Everything But The Girl was how musician Ben Watt and singer Tracey Thorn (previously here, here, and here) styled themselves and I adore them. The group started in the neo-jazz groove of the mid-80s and morphed into a spectacular dance band in the 90s. But it is Thorn's voice that has always been front and center, no matter what the music style. Watt and Thorn wrote some stunning lyrics but I have a soft spot for this particular song for several personal reasons. It came out around the time a very influential and important friend in my life died. After her death I would drive past her house in Berkeley and think, just like the lyrics to this song, "...but you don't live there anymore."

And to make matters worse, there is another layer. I stayed here in California when my parents moved back to the east coast in the late 90s; my mom wrote me regular letters and closed once with a quote from the song: "I miss you like the deserts miss the rain." She and my father passed away a year later.

Yes, missing....as in "yearning for," but also as in "disappeared."

I step off the train
I'm walking down your street again
And past your door, but you don't live there anymore
It's years since you've been there
Now you've disappeared somewhere like outer space
You've found some better place

And I miss you, like the deserts miss the rain
And I miss you, like the deserts miss the rain

Could you be dead?
You always were two steps ahead of everyone
We'd walk behind while you would run
I look up at your house
And I can almost hear you shout down to me
Where I always used to be

And I miss you like the deserts miss the rain
And I miss you like the deserts miss the rain

Back on the train, I ask why did I come again?
Can I confess, I've been hanging round your old address?
And the years have proved
To offer nothing since you've moved
You're long gone, but I can't move on

And I miss you like the deserts miss the rain
And I miss you like the deserts miss the rain
And I miss you

I step off the train
I'm walking down your street again
And past your door, I guess you don't live there anymore
It's years since you've been there
Now you've disappeared somewhere like outer space
You've found some better place

And I miss you
And I miss you
You found some better place

And I miss you like the deserts miss the rain
And I miss you, yeah, like the deserts miss the rain

http://ebtg.com/
http://splash.traceythorn.com/