I’m going to sound like I’m 70, but one of my favorite albums of all time is Sinatra’s “In the Wee Small Hours”. If you’re ever single, a bit melancholy and have a free hour or so, do yourself a favor and listen to the whole thing. The album is so incredibly atmospheric. It encapsulates that whole feeling of hopeful solitude that you feel sometimes. It’s hope but surrounded by blue. That’s how I feel sometimes, especially in New York City. There’s 8 million people here, but it’s such a blur, such a throng, such a rush of people all the time. But to really meet someone here? Hell, it’s a crapshoot, just like every where else in the world. There’s a song on the album, titled “Glad to Be Unhappy”.
Look at yourself, if you had a sense of humor
You would laugh to beat the band
Look at yourself, do you still believe the rumor
That romance is simply grand?
Since you took it right on the chin
You have lost that bright toothpaste grin
My mental state is all a-jumble
I sit around and sadly mumble
Fools rush in, so here I am
Very glad to be unhappy
I can’t win, but here I am
More than glad to be unhappy
Unrequited love’s a bore
And I’ve got it pretty bad
But for someone you adore
It’s a pleasure to be sad
Like a straying baby lamb
With no mammy and no pappy
I’m so unhappy
But oh, so glad….
Short song, that’s the whole thing, but I haven’t found a song that better captures that feeling, of at least knowing that you have someone to pine for. A hopeful longing, a wishful loneliness.
Which, of course, I miss. My existence is pretty much completely focused on everything else other than romance, which is good, because that’s where my focus needs to be right now. But still, I miss the thought of missing someone. It sounds completely ridiculous, but it’s the honest truth. I sometimes wonder if I’d be more focused on everything else if my lovelife wasn’t in the nebulous state that it is in, but I think I know the real answer to that, or maybe I don’t. Hell if I know. See, all these words, and Sinatra still says it way better than I’ll ever be able to.
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