13. Happier - (Guster)

"One more inch, you son of a bitch."

"So close... and yet so far": that's pretty much the message of Guster's "Happier" in a nutshell.

And so ends today's blog entry. After all...


"All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know."
- Ernest Hemingway

Ok, ok...

With due apologies to the old man ("and the sea?"), this really wouldn't really be much of a "literature of lyrics" blog if I simply left today's entry at just one sentence, now would it? But I will take a cue from dear old Ernie and try to keep the typical barrage of adjectives to a minimum, wherever possible.

So here we go.

Like we said above, Guster's "Happier" tackles a pretty basic theme: "so close, but so far." Two people (presumably onetime lovers, but this could just as easily be applied to would-be-business-partners or erstwhile friends) gave it their best shot, but things ultimately broke down in the end (as they so often do).

As the song begins:

"Say goodbye, lose your friends
Make them go, you don't need them around
'Cause it's time, lose your friends
Make them go, it was never supposed to be like this"

Clearly, our narrator is at a crossroads. Beseiged by some force greater than himself, he's forced to settle accounts in a hurry and get to steppin' before he gets sucked down the vortex of broken relationships. How broken are these relationships, you ask?

"They were too weak, too prone to break
Their needs too deep, their skins too thick
By now you took what was to take
Tear it apart and start again."

In short: real broken. And it's gone past the point where trying to fix them will do anything to remedy the situation. The narrator simply must accept that it's broken, then "tear it apart and start again."

Or, as our buddy Ernest Hemingway so famously puts it:

"The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."
-A Farewell to Arms (1929)

In Guster's words?

To "bend 'till ya' break" is simply to "make the same mistakes... always."

When it's broken, it's broken. No matter how close you think you were to making it work -- "one more inch" or not -- what is done is done, and being "gentle" or "brave" about the matter doesn't make one lick of difference in the end.

Accept the inevitable.

Know when to say when.

And for God's sake man -- let it go.