I know the new ABBA songs dropped today, but I'm currently traveling due to my grandfather's funeral and haven't got time to properly do those songs justice this week. I already had this post 95% written so this is today's offering. Enjoy!
I'd heard of Breaking Benjamin before. My best friend has gone on about them for years. I always planned to look them up, but never remembered to do so.
Then, on a late night trip down a lonely highway last year, this song came up on my husband's phone. We had been making light conversation, but this song happened to pierce a lull and pique my interest. I listened in silence, hanging onto every word. The man was singing everything I had been feeling since 2015 when my entire world fell apart. I had never heard my feelings put into words so succinctly (even Terry Scott Taylor had to make a whole career out of encapsulating my feelings). The comfort that came from the intimate familiarity quite literally made me cry. My bewildered husband tried to comfort me, but the tears were tears of joy -- the sort of joy that comes when after YEARS of wasted effort and futile attempts, somebody finally understands you and your pain. They were tears of joy in the camaraderie. The man in the song was finally putting into words the questions and the longing and the prayer that my deeply wounded soul had never been able to articulate...
Then, on a late night trip down a lonely highway last year, this song came up on my husband's phone. We had been making light conversation, but this song happened to pierce a lull and pique my interest. I listened in silence, hanging onto every word. The man was singing everything I had been feeling since 2015 when my entire world fell apart. I had never heard my feelings put into words so succinctly (even Terry Scott Taylor had to make a whole career out of encapsulating my feelings). The comfort that came from the intimate familiarity quite literally made me cry. My bewildered husband tried to comfort me, but the tears were tears of joy -- the sort of joy that comes when after YEARS of wasted effort and futile attempts, somebody finally understands you and your pain. They were tears of joy in the camaraderie. The man in the song was finally putting into words the questions and the longing and the prayer that my deeply wounded soul had never been able to articulate...
Will the faithful be rewarded
When we come to the end?
Will I miss the final warning
From the life that I have lived?
Is there anybody calling?
I can see the soul within
And I am not worthy
I am not worthy of this
Are You with me after all?
Why can't I hear You?
Are You with me through it all?
Then why can't I feel You?
Stay with me; don't let me go
Because there's nothing left at all
Stay with me; don't let me go
Until the ashes of Eden fall...
The song is MUCH slower than my usual pace, and I would have completely missed it in literally any other context. That song was meant for that exact moment in time, otherwise I would never have heard it.
At the same time, the release date of this album is not lost on me. 2015. The year that everything fell apart. The year that everyone and everything I ever loved died, at least in a spiritual sense. The year that broke my heart into so many pieces that I will never be able to repair it. The year that caused my permanent mental and emotional limp. This album was right there, existing in the world at the same time as my shattered shell, and I missed it when I needed it the most. In a way, that makes me angry. I wonder what kind of person I would have been had I heard that album the year it was first released. Yes, it provided a healing balm for me in 2020, but how much more effective would it have been in 2015, when the wound was still raw and pouring blood?
There's no way to know. If we're being perfectly honest, I probably would have snubbed it at the time, as I generally do with 99% of new music. Heck, I hated even some of my favourite albums that year. I had been a massive ABBA fangirl for well over five years and I found myself literally skipping past my favourite ABBA songs in 2015 because it was too much to process music over the immense amount of pain. I could only manage to listen to three albums (Crumbächer's Escape From The Fallen Planet, Terry Scott Taylor's A Briefing For The Ascent, and Russ Taff's self-titled 1987 album), and it stayed that way for nearly a year.
I just have to accept the little bit of healing this song can offer me now. I suppose it's better than nothing. And it is a beautiful arrangement. Sparse strings and light drums add to the big loneliness of the song and keep the lyrics -- the true star -- front and centre.
Song: Ashes Of Eden
Artist: Breaking Benjamin
Album: The Dark Before The Dawn
Year: 2015
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