Wednesday, May 16, 2007

She Wore Black

The Zombies (Sixties Pop)
iPod Choice: Leave Me Be (1965)



When I was 17 I fell in love with C. At the time I played guitar in a punk band and we met at a practice session. She was a vision to behold - quiet, gentle and unbearably lovely. I wanted her immediately. When we became a couple my friends said we were well-suited and I was a lucky guy.

I adored everything about C. Her sweet, feminine smell. Her lustrous, brunette hair. Her burgundy blouse and frayed jeans. The way she kissed and touched me in front of my envious friends.

That summer we were inseparable. After a prolonged and ecstatic make out session at a party she told me she loved me. I was living on Cloud 9. Could life, I asked myself, be any better than this?

Then the axe fell. Symbolically, the end came at a much-hated sports club, surrounded by wanky rugby men and their handbag girls. C and I danced briefly, then she asked me to go outside with her. She wanted to "talk about something."

A feeling of foreboding came over me. I felt a yawning sensation in my stomach.

The break-up was ruthless and swift. I had become - in a phrase dreaded by ardent young males - "too serious". Toppled from my cloud, I was a has-been, my new address: Splitsville, U.K. My friends were supportive and sympathetically plied me with vodka. Hers reassuringly lied that they had begged her not to dump me. But it was no use. I was shell shocked and stunned by my unsought-for singledom.

As a disaffected swain I turned to my record collection for solace, pathetically seeking out songs of rejection like The Zombies’ classic B-side Leave Me Be. Their paean to teen angst perfectly matched my new pose as a spurned lover: “You’d better leave me be/Till I don’t need her anymore”.

The week after our break-up, C showed up at a local theater where I was performing with my band. In symbolic acknowledgment of our separation she had transformed herself, and to my dismay looked sensational in a black dress with a huge pair of matching black triangular earrings. I've never forgotten those earrings. In the midst of my teen angst, they assumed a mythic importance. Ominous and mean, they were accessories to a crime of passion, dark daggers plunging deeper into an already wounded heart.

A year later, I ran into C at a Christmas party. As she approached me I became dizzy with joy. Now herself recovering from a painful breakup, she confided that she regretted ending our relationship. She held my hand and kissed me tenderly. I wanted her back, oh, how I wanted her. But, confused and unsure, I would not accept her overture. Ugly, vainful pride raised its head, and I chose to leave her be.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are you over her yet, Shiffi? Sounds like you might still be burning a flame?

Anonymous said...

People say time heals sorrow, agonies, but I don't think it does completely. But I know that's why you have such a fine sensibility for music!

Shiffi Le Soy said...

Thank you, Cushion Meg.

You're right. It doesn't heal completely. I suppose all the hurt and all the joy makes us what we are.

Anonymous said...

Oh Why? She wanted you. Why hadn't you taken her back? Was it a love that was too strong?