On Repeat | Songbird

There's not much to do when you're in Santa Monica, stopped in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 405 during rush hour, and crying big heaving sobs because you've just really listened to a Christine McVie song for the first time, and it's shot an arrow through your already soft heart.

So you just let yourself cry.

Get it all out.

And when it's finally all out, you're still just sitting there, stuck in traffic, with plenty of time to think about how you've always, always been a Stevie girl!

You've always skipped the Christine songs--those perky, classy, smooth tunes. Who needs 'em?

Like a moth to a lightbulb, you've fluttered, fascinated and frantic around the majestic mystery of Stevie Nicks. Her voice, her lace, her witchiness, her... je ne sais quoi.

And it's exactly the "je ne sais quoi" that you've most loved about Stevie. The "I don't know" what this is. It's seemed so exotic and other-worldly. It's seemed so very different from your simple childhood, growing up in a farm town, dreaming of a more exciting and happening life. 

Christine has always seemed so normal, hiding behind her piano. It's like, who cares?

But suddenly, you're stuck in a long commute, with nothing better to do than listen to Rumors the whole way through, without skipping songs (I mean, we're gonna be here for a while), and Songbird comes on...

and you realize you really do care.

It's starts so simply:

"For you, there'll be no more crying..."

Ironically, you are in fact, already crying.

You feel like you've never heard something so effortlessly emotive and true. No dreamy harmonies, no searing guitar, no haunting percussion.

Just one woman, sitting at her piano, singing a song from her heart.

That is enough to crack your heart open.

You think about how many years of your childhood and adolescence you spent being hard on yourself for not being "cool" or "beautiful" or "exciting" enough. How many years of your life you've spent trying to be like other people, all the while judging yourself for not being "enough."

But something has changed, as you've sat, stuck in traffic on the 405.

You've realized maybe you've been a Christine McVie girl all along.

And it's beautiful, and true, and gives you life.

Or maybe it's just me.