Day 25: Girl Harbor – Manchester Orchestra

When it’s June and you’re 23, that means it’s wedding season. Everyone is getting married. The amount of social media posts can get a bit ridiculous, but you have to admit it’s a little fun too. It’s exciting to see two people in love.

There is that dangerous part of love, too, called the honeymoon phse. It’s not really a safe place to be as far as being in love. Everything is heightened, especially all of the good things. All the bad things? They’re kind of ignored. And when the honeymoon phase is over, well, things can get ugly.

Day 25: Girl Harbor – Manchester Orchestra

“Girl Harbor,” from Manchester’s synthy album “Hope,” is about the deterioration of a relationship in a marital context. It’s about how those things that were once endearing are now annoying or even destructive.

Cuz you always talk so loud
And you never notice
I don’t mind the sound
And you rearrange the pieces of your life
So many times you burned out the light

The guitar and vocals give you the sensation of falling, and then of a rocking back and forth, which goes with the lyrics in the pre-chorus:

I don’t wanna believe
But I wanna believe you
I don’t mean what I say
But I say what I need to

Fun fact: there’s two versions of “Girl Harbor.” The first version is from the 2013 album “Cope.” And it sounds a lot angrier. You might say “Hope” is just an acoustic version of “Cope,” and, sure. But it’s interesting to hear the same lyrics with different colors.

Now your last name is mine and it feels no different
I made a matchless shrine to prove
Trying to find a way I can explain
There was nothing else to possibly say

One version sounds very angry and bitter, the other sounds mild and gentle. And guess what? Every song from “Hope” and “Cope” is the same, but with these two different colors. I frickin love it.

I prefer the gentler color of “Girl Harbor.” It’s gently accusatory, which sounds terrible, but I love it. Because oftentimes, that’s how things fall apart. Gentle words can destroy a happy home as much as violent ones can.

Our desperate friends trying to reconcile the bends
There is a name for men like you inside the dark
And I know your faults
I know the way you write them off
I don’t want anything to do with it no more

Then there’s the friends who try to help, or worse – pick sides. But sometimes, it just doesn’t work. It just wasn’t meant to be, and that sucks. But hey, that’s love for ya.

You waste so much time
You waste so much time

What’s the moral of this song? Probably to check the foundation of your relationship before jumping in. No matter how smitten you are now, you have to look at things realistically. Is this a good thing, or am I using this person as a harbor to escape from something? Or better, what hidden feelings about this relationship am I harboring?