Before the demise of my father ate my life, I was on a songwriting roll. I wrote three really good songs in the first three months of this year, and one of them is called “Bliss”, which is a love song, of sorts, to my wife, She Who Must Be Taunted.
As I’ve tried to make clear over lo, these many years, I can’t write love songs. In fact, I wrote a song called “I Can’t Write Love Songs”, which is, of course, a love song, and I’m fond of saying in my live performances that I wrote it for SWMBT just to shut her up – because, you know, spouses of songwriters are always bugging them to write songs for them, ha ha, such a clever conceit. In any case, now that we’ve been together almost twenty years, I thought it would be worth trying again, and I’m pretty happy with how it came out. The chorus:
And it’s
Been bliss
From the first preposterous kiss
You were looking for a schmuck like me
And I knew
That I was looking for a jerk like you
This song goes over like gangbusters. It’s a bouncy Turtles tribute about two bitter, angry people who are giddily in love with each other. What amazes me about this song is how many people walk up to me and tell me how true it is for them. In fact, the only other song that’s ever happened with is “The Handyman’s Waltz”, the one I wrote about my dad’s idiosyncratic approach to home repair, which apparently speaks to the child of every single old Jewish guy with tools. And what further amazes me is how many of these people who identify with this new song are not young.
I’ve been thinking about why this might be, and I think have the answer: this particular brand of bliss is not a young thing. You have to have been in a serious relationship for a while to understand that if you want to have a successful, happy partnership, your partner’s flaws can’t bug you – in fact, they can’t even be neutral. You really have to embrace them – not celebrate them, necessarily, and not defend them, heaven knows, but treat them with affection and patience, and, of course, not a small dose of mockery. When I was young(er), I almost certainly didn’t understand this, and it meant that I chose people who were wrong for me, because they had flaws that I was not able to embrace, and also not licensed to mock.
Now that I’m old(er), I think I get it. Don’t get me wrong; I haven’t forced SWMBT to endure every one of my annoying habits, and there are topics for which mockery is clearly off the table. But some of my rough edges have been sanded down, there’s no doubt, and SWMBT will tell you that some of her worst impulses have been tempered as well. I’m not going to give you any examples; it would be far too embarrassing for everyone involved. Let’s just say that each of us is a slightly more tolerable person for having been married to the other.
And these things can be absolutely mysterious to the outside world. My parents used to yell at each other about the price of grapes, or, well, practically everything. If you remember the split screen dinner scene in “Annie Hall”, my house was the loud side. My parents adored each other. And I never, ever could have abided being in that marriage. None of us is everybody’s cup of tea.
But I – lucky I – have found my cup of tea. And it’s the best thing ever. But probably not for you.