Stronger

Wanted to write something about the 50 songs I chose in the previous blog post, just some observations on a song by song basis - won't do it for them all. Don't read on if you're dealing with some grief right now, as it's about loss and I hate to upset people.

STRONGER - Sugababes

(single, 2002, from album "Angels with Dirty Faces)

Oh fuck.

Pop music as emotional trigger.

Sugababes released a string of what the kids call absolute bangers at the start of the century, an all time John Cazale style run. If we do anything well in this country its pop music, and girl group pop music especially. And I could have picked “Freak Like Me”, “Round Round” (especially the Soulwax mix), "Overload" or even “Push the Button”.

But Stronger is the one for me, even if it does take me back some place I'd rather not go.

We had a kitten called Marvin. He came along with his sister Millie in the package labelled “New Girlfriend.” It was a good package, an instant family.

A few months later my stepdad died. 

A friend came to cat sit whilst we attended the funeral. Marvin, being a fucking lunatic, ran out of the door the moment the cat sitter arrived and got hit by a car. He survived but with a problem that wouldn’t get any better and we spent a fortune on vet’s bills before facing up to the vet's assertion we were just prolonging his agony. The day we took him on his final journey was grim, a fortnight before Christmas, the rain lashing down. And the vets is only round the corner so we walk and he’s meowing like mad, loudest he’s been in some time. And it’s not really my kitten, it’s my girlfriend’s, I tell myself, I'm going to be ok. I’m alright with this decision. It’s not fair to see him in so much pain. I’m going to be there for her, I’m carrying the cage because it’s heavy and it’s only a 5-minute walk but it takes forever and the vet sees us straight away.

Of course Marvin climbs out of the cage like he’s better, not fucked, not half crippled and yelping in pain continually. A ginger Lazarus. One last act of defiance. And I can feel myself going, the lip is wobbling, the eyes are misting up. The vet, she strokes him and then Marvin, the little prick, starts playing with a stethoscope round her neck like he’s back in good health, still got some play in him. And it’s that that fucking kills me. I can’t be there for this. I run out of the room, completely overcome, can’t be there and I’m properly uncontrollably and undignifiedly puke-crying in the street.

I want to get absolutely fucked on booze but I can’t and I don’t, I wait for my girlfriend and she comes out and I pull myself together and we walk home in the wet dark silence. Later that evening I’m making a cup of tea for us and the radio is on in the kitchen and Stronger comes on and it’s all too raw and literal and I’m shaking with grief and anger and it reminds me that I’m no good at this stuff. I can’t be strong around loss and pain. And this song becomes stuck in my head for the next few days. I buy the record, I play it repeatedly, it purges me of something but I feel guilty about the level of my anguish. I shouldn’t feel this much but I do.

Stronger is an anthem of defiance, a song that transports me instantly to those unbearable moments.  It's Unfinished Sympathy for the pop kids. And it’s Marvin’s song now. Even now, 21 years later, I’m back on that walk, the cage swinging in my left hand as he rocks it around, trying to make sense of his final minutes, the condemned man. And it’s a magnificent pop song that can do that thing where you say to yourself that you almost enjoy that misery, because it’s like another instrument playing at a frequency only you can hear. 

So probably shouldn't have had the song on this morning in the gym....