Day Eighteen: Organs – Of Monsters and Men

I’ve yet to see a breakup where everyone escapes unscathed. I’ve yet to see a love where there’s not at least some heartbreak involved.

Relationships end for a number of reasons. Distance, change, cheating, miscommunication. It especially hurts when all it took was one thing to go wrong. One word, one action, one anything. And sadly, that’s usually how relationships end. One choice leads to another, then another.

If you’re anything like me, you blame yourself when things go wrong. If there’s problems at work, I immediately think, now what did I do? If I sense strife among my roommates, I assume I had something to do to cause it. And when romantic relationships go wrong, I’ve always assumed it was me and not them.

It’s funny how things stay with you, no matter how much you don’t want to be reminded of them. There are good memories that stay with you, that give you that melancholy pang in your chest when you think about them, but then there are memories that used to be good, but now they leave a sour taste in your mouth.

Just think about the friends you’ve had over the years. Sometimes they drift away slowly, but other times there’s a falling out. Now all your memories of them are shaded by that falling out. Even if you were to be friends again, things would never be the same.

It’s always pretty impressive when something like a song can encapsulate everything you feel when you lose someone. It’s an intense but subtle emotion. All at once you feel full and empty. It’s not easy to capture that in lyrics.

But this little Icelandic band you may have heard of did just that.

Day Eighteen: Organs – Of Monsters and Men

OMAM found fame pretty quickly with their 2012 album My Head is an Animal. Their unique sound, youthful vocals, and quirky lyrics blend together for a near-perfect sound. I mean, who even knows what “King and Lionheart” means? Much less “Dirty Paws.” But it’s that fun poetry that makes OMAM so electric. Their first album was breezy and whimsical. “Little Talks” was their first big hit stateside, complete with a brass band and a dialogue between a woman and a ghost. Then “Dirty Paws” came onto the scene not long after The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Hey, we talked about this.)

Their second album got a bit grittier. Beneath the Skin is, as you might expect, a bit more introspective. It’s still dreamy and fantastical, but the subject matter digs a bit deeper. The lead singer, Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir (remember I said they’re Icelandic) lends her breathy vocals to a background of pounding drums, rich vocals, and simplistic instrumentation.

My favorite thing about Organs, the seventh track on this album, is that it’s more raw. There’s no poetic device or artistic license. Nanna is calling it like it is. She is the lone voice singing in this song paired with a simple instrumental backing. Her beautifully strained voice reminds us that it’s easy to lose yourself.

I am sorry this is always how it goes
The wind blows loudest when you’ve got your eyes closed
But I never changed a single color that I breathe
So you could have tried to take a closer look at me

It’s frustrating when someone is mad at you and doesn’t try to see things from your point of view. Nanna is frustrated that once again she seems to have messed up somehow. Maybe she’s done this multiple times in a single relationship, or may it’s a pattern in her life. She continues to beat herself up for her wrongdoings.

I am tired of punching in the wind
I am tired of letting it all in
I should eat you up and spit you right out
I should not care but I don’t know how

I’ve sure you’ve been in a relationship that’s emotionally exhausting. My first relationship was like that. It took everything out of me until I felt the way Nanna is talking about. But the more I tried not to care, the more I cared. I couldn’t not care because I had invested so much into him.

So I take off my face cuz it reminds me how it all went wrong
And I pull out my tongue cuz it reminds me how it all went wrong
And I cough up my lungs cuz it reminds me how it all went wrong

Now we get to some grotesque word pictures. Nanna has reminders that she doesn’t want. And she carries those reminders around – what she said, what she did, how she reacted. And she’s going to lose herself to the pain. Or is she?

But I leave in my heart
Cuz I don’t want to stay in the dark

Maybe there’s still hope. Even if this didn’t work out, maybe something down the road will. Maybe she just has to be patient.

In the second verse, Nanna perfectly encapsulates how you feel post-breakup. After all the words have been said, after a little time has gone by. You’re left with some residual emptiness, and quite a bit of bitterness. She paints a pretty desolate picture.

I am sorry for the trouble, I suppose
My blood runs red but my body feels so cold 
I guess I could swim for days in the salty sea
But in the end the waves would discolor me

Nanna realizes how vulnerable she is. She’s so disoriented that even the waves of the ocean would end up changing her disposition. After a significant heartbreak, you can feel pretty vulnerable and exposed to the world. You used to have the protection of another person, but now you don’t.

It’s easy to cheapen yourself after a failed relationship. At the end of the day, it feels like you failed. And what’s worse, you’re probably still surrounded by things that remind you of everything that went wrong, when everything used to be right.

And believe me, it’s easy to get used to that pain, so much so that you expect it and that it defines you. I don’t know where you are as far as breakups go – maybe you’ve never experienced one. But you’ve probably experienced heartache. You want the pain to stop, but you also don’t – because you want to feel something. Because as long as you feel something, there’s still hope.

But I’ll tell you right now that no person is ever worth forgetting who you are. It’s not worth losing yourself or draining yourself of everything for the sake of the other person.

Your organs are worth more than that.