Outside of Detroit – “Addicted” -May 27, 2000

Detroit is broken — broken down, broken into, and broken-hearted. I empathize with this city from the back of the van, a guitar in hand. I’m writing a song about heartache. Somehow, between Buffalo and Akron, I managed to break my heart on a boy, not 1/2 worthy of my time.

We’d fallen in love earlier this spring. He was handsome, something I’d intended to be a distraction from missing Kipp. But somehow it became serious after the boy in question, let’s call him Sam, drove 1,000 miles from his home in LA to Boulder just to take me out to dinner. When Sam drove home to LA the next day he turned his car around when he hit the coast realizing he couldn’t stand to be without me another second. After this (slightly insane) 3,000-mile round trip he booked a flight to New York where Mike and I were mixing the following week to profess his love and hold my hand while I finished the album. Yes, yes, I didn’t mention it because really, it was such a silly love affair—so cliche and Hollywood and I’d only ever intended to be another roadside attraction…. not a 90-degree detour.

But in New York, our energy was so intense we were electrifying people around us left and right. One day Sam made us a picnic lunch and I serenaded him in Sheep’s Meadow. People throughout the park started pulling their blankets around us so intoxicated were they by the love we were giving off. When we strolled to coffee on Madison Ave each morning, people shouted from their windows “Don’t let her go.” “Don’t let her get away!” and “You were meant for each other.” It was a fucking romcom for god sake. I gave myself to the sea of his adoration.

When we parted, me for left-hand coast, he for the right, it was excruciating. We promised to see each other on my first break from tour, over Memorial Day (May 28-30). However, when I called him to shore up logistics, he was in LA on his way to the desert to go water skiing on Lake Havasu, with some guy named Eric.

ME: “Hey baby, I’m soooooo stoked to see you. Do you want to meet me out here on the road or would you prefer I come out to where you are? I’m happy to pick up plane tickets either way.”
SAM: “What are the dates again?” We’d been over dates already. Nightly actually, as we pined for one another after every show when I called him from the van or some halogen-lit hotel room and we’d dream up our reunion.
ME: “28th, 29th and 30th.”
SAM: “Of May?!?!”
ME: “Yes.”
SAM: “Ok, 28th, 29th and 30th…” He repeated slowly. I could tell I was on speakerphone. I heard the car door slam and then, when he was sure Eric was within earshot, he asked again “Of this month?”
ME: “Yes.”
SAM “No, no, no I’ll still be in Havasu hun.” HUN!?!?!?!
ME: “Ok… Well, what about the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th of June?”
SAM: “Uh… OK.. Uh… Oh… No, nope. Can’t hun. I’m throwing an annual bash on the 5th. It’s a really cool party. Everyone dresses in ’80s attire.”

I sat there for a second, the sun streaming in on me from the passenger side seat at a stop light in Clevland, and felt like a slowly deflating pool raft. I was disgusted with myself thinking, I’ve rearranged my tour for this guy. I’ve offered to fly out or pay his way to come see me. If this guy loved me ½ as much as he says he does, he’d be on the next flight, not making excuses like skiing in Lake Havasu or some 80’s bash he didn’t even invite me to. My heart broke into a million pieces as I found the voice to say:

ME: “Well, then I guess I’ll see you in LA when we tour up the West Coast.”
SAM: “…Yeah, yup, that’s what it’s looking like.” I could feel my heart cannibalize itself. I wanted to puke.
ME: “Why are you doing this? I don’t understand.” I could hear Eric listening in to us in the background, the way Sam undoubtedly wanted him to. It was clear he needed Eric to think I was some demanding, uncompromising, egocentric bitch who wouldn’t leave him alone or let him have any sort of freedom.
SAM: “What?!? Are you mad at me for having a party that I have every year —” He was going to go on but I stopped him right there. My pride wouldn’t hear another word of it.
ME: “OK, I’m hanging up now. I don’t get why you’re doing this but I’m going. Good bye. I hope you have fun at Lake Havasu.” Click.

And just like that I knew I was hooked. He was the drink I couldn’t put down. I was addicted and I knew I needed the sort of abstinence from him I was incapable of. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. Being on the road I was undoubtedly at my most vulnerable and therefore most susceptible to addiction. How did I let this happen? And there I was in a car full of bandmates in Clevland, strung out and in need of a hit I couldn’t get.

Now, two days later, I’m strung out and in withdrawal on my way to Indiana. Little translucent bugs flit around near the window. We picked them up accidentally in Cleveland after the mostly empty Peabody’s show where a rave competed for our sound space on the floor above.

I’m watching Detroit’s city lights through the back window, blurred by drizzle and pothole smoke. Kicking my Sam habit in this hopeless, heartbroken city makes me feel like I’ve been second-hand smoking Cuban cigars– like I’ve taken the wrong luggage from an airport tarmac and opened it to find someone’s porn collection. I feel dirty and deflated and drowned from within.

I’ll write a song about it from the lonely back seat of the van. It’s gonna take a lot of lyrics to save me from this heartache. No time like the present to start to swim back to the surface I guess…

Memorial Day

Call me up from LA
On your way to the desert
On Memorial Day
Our communication
Is slipping away
We say words
without their implications

My best friend (Nisa)
Hears the news
And tells me that she’s glad
That you’re gone
That she never did trust you
I explain I am blue
Like the room that we stayed in
Where we made our first love
Now it’s fading

Now I’m in too deep
And my heart has stopped sleeping
But I can’t stop dreaming of you
And I’m in too deep
And you’re hurt my last feeling
Every time that I breathe in
To you…