Your Love Alone is Not Enough

Not enough, not enough, not enough... So the Manic SP lyrics go. Decades of songs about unrequited love, heartbreak, loss in relationships have been empathy-inspiring because we've all been there. We've all had our cardiovascular regions abused. But love falling short of our expectations, that seems to be subject matter a little less touched upon. Less imagined or predicted in the romantic minds of the average American, but more realistic. Its happening all around us; evident in the rising divorce rate, domestic abuse incidents, and influx of older, single Americans who've realized relationships are simply too costly (yes, even in the financial sense).

Manic Street Preachers - Your Love Alone is Not Enough [ysi]

'Your Love Alone is Not Enough' touches on another kind of failure in relationships - this one between friends or lovers. The Rub: Our love for another person is never enough to save them from themselves, and the helplessness we feel is inevitable. How heartbreaking for us, doomed to insufficiency. We will never be enough for someone else, whether they want us or not. Ultimately the human condition is an isolating one; born alone, die alone et cetera. One is not the loneliest, but the only number.

Gang of Four - We Live as We Dream, Alone [ysi]

Beck - Go it Alone [ysi]

They say love is interminable if only our efforts remain inexhaustible. I say, page me when they make hearts that last forever. Mine is currently feeling a little rundown. I'd even settle for an emotional pacemaker. Perhaps I could corner the market on that...

Today is all about that feeling of falling short in relationships, in love. About the power (or curse) of one.

The Cure - Never Enough [ysi]
The Magnetic Fields - Why I Cry [ysi]
Bloc Party - Blue Light (Engineers 'Anti-Gravity Mix) [ysi]
The Midway State - Change for You [ysi]
What if I change for you? Then will you see me, still with you?
Bishop Allen - Shrinking Violet [ysi]
Cat Power - Woman Left Lonely [ysi]
Rilo Kiley - I Never
I got nothing to give you, you see/Expect everything/Everything/All the good and the bad/Cause I've been bad/Lied, cheated, stolen, been ungrateful for what I've had/And I'm afraid habits rule my waking life/I'm scared/And I'm running in my sleep/For you/But all of
the oceans and rivers and showers will wash it all away/And make me clean/For you
Led Zeppelin - Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You [ysi]
Abrevadero - All My Little Words (Magnetic Fields Cover) [ysi]
Bruce Springsteen - For You
Crawl into my ambulance, your pulse is getting weak/Reveal yourself all now to me girl while you've got the strength to speak/'Cause they're waiting for you at bellevue with their oxygen masks/But I could give it all to you now if only you could ask/And don't call for your surgeon even he says its too late/Its not your lungs this time, its your heart that holds your fate/...Didn't you think I knew that you were born with the power of a locomotive?/Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound?/And your chelsea suicide with no apparent motive/You could laugh and cry in a single sound/...I came for you, for you, I came for you/But you did not need my urgency/I came for you, for you, I came for you/But your life was one long emergency

Bonus/Just Cause:
Ray Charles - That Lucky Old Sun Just Rolls Aound Heaven [ysi]

PS. The Manic SP song is not new, none of these are, it just holds a special place in my heart. The story behind its penning is heartbreaking; the loss of a friend to suicide, and the residual feelings of guilt over what could have been, what more could have been done. It was Bono who said that courage is taking our darkest experiences and turning them into a upbeat pop song. I'm finding it eerily comforting to bop along to tragedy.