I Love You Stephen Malkmus But You’re Bringing Me Down
You’re like a bad boyfriend.
You broke up with me all those years ago but I never stopped loving you. I waited and I waited and I waited for you to come back, and when you did I was elated: I just couldn’t wait to see you again. And Sunday night was great! We reveled and we drank and we reminisced of old times and everything felt perfect.
But then I saw you on Colbert and I was reminded of all the bad times, of the way you always thought you could just coast through life on nothing but your charm and good looks, and even I for whom you’ve never been anything short of perfect couldn’t help but flinch when you thought you could just bat your eyelashes a few times and call it an “interview”.
And then tonight happened.
“Gold Soundz” was (again) a letdown; the “Fin” was disastrous; and you were obviously just going through the motions during “We Dance”. But it wasn’t until you botched “Stereo” and tried to cover it with some line about how Sun Ra would have done it like that (again, that charm!)—that’s when I knew we were done, when I knew you weren’t putting as much into this relationship as I was, when I realized you thought you could just be you—quirky, endearing, fragile, flawed you—and that I’d just keep on loving you unquestionably, just because I didn’t know any other way, just because I couldn’t help but love you.
But let’s be honest: this is just a nostalgia act. And I think It’s time we finally move on.
