Healing Song: Love More
Love More by Sharon Van Etten
By David Chou
“Love More” is a sorrowful song with a hopeful ending.
A pulsing accordion is the first thing to hit your ears. Then comes the haunting voice of Sharon Van Etten, drawn out and steady. Within moments her lyrics paint a sad picture of domestic turmoil.
In an interview with Pitchfork Van Etten tells the story behind the song.
As a struggling musician she had gotten little support from her boyfriend, who believed she lacked the makings of a songwriter:
I’m still a softy, but back then I was so defeated. He told me I wasn’t good enough and I really believed it.
The hurtful relationship emerges in her poignant lyrics:
Chained to the wall of our room
Yeah, you chained me like a dog in our room
I thought that’s how it was
I thought that we were fine
These words reveal how we can be enmeshed in unhealthy relationships yet not sense the inner disease.
Early on, abuse can be subtle. Kept from her passion and her potential she felt chained down. And then it grows darker. She sings:
Then the day was night
You were high, you were high
While I was doomed
And dyin’ for
With no life,
With no light.
The bright day turned to a bleakness that also speaks of seeing no way out. But she continues:
Tied to my bed,
I was younger then, I had nothing to spend
Time on you
But it made me love,
It made me love
As she explained to Pitchfork, a saving friend lifted her from her emotional rut. She had gone to visit a good friend in Tennessee. They got Diet Cokes and cigarettes, blasted some music and sang. “We wouldn’t even talk, really – we’d just sing. That’s how we got our relief.”
Over into the sky where I’ll soon fly
And she took the time
To believe in, to believe in
After being chained down she now saw the possibility and freedom of flight. Finally she cuts the bad fruit from the tree and leaves her partner. Soaring up and away from her toxic situation she began her next journey to a healthier state… a stronger person…
It made me love,
It made me love more.
She made it through hell and found that she could love again.
Source: Pitchfork
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Posted on June 16, 2017, in relationships, violence against women and tagged abuse, leaving abusive relationships, Love More, relationships, Sharon Van Etten. Bookmark the permalink. 11 Comments.
BroadBlogs 
Such a powerful song… I am a Lana del Rey´s fan.
I think you might enjoy this song by her. Same subject, BTW. I´ll add the lyrics too.
Ultraviolence, Song by Lana del Rey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFWC4SiZBao
Ultraviolence, Lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lanadelrey/ultraviolence.html
Love & best wishes, dear Georgia.
Thanks for this!
Glad to share with you! 😀 happy weekend xx
Relationships like these whether a boyfriend or anyone else, shouldn’t even exist in this world.
Funny, how everyone has issues with their boyfriends being so abusive and here, I having a relationship like that with my parents.
They have put me so down in life that I don’t have any motivation to become something.
I just want a long break from them, like forever, then my mind will be at peace and maybe I can find myself and what I want to do in life.
Hurt people hurt people. It’s too bad that they don’t heal themselves instead of hurt others.
I love this song! What is to be said about its thoughts has been said. There’s a melancholy note in the lovely music that makes me think of old Appalachian folk melodies or even older North England tunes I’ve almost forgotten. Reminds me of female voices – fishermen’s wives songs of Hull or Scarborough, or Nottinghamshire miners’ wives voices of almost choked but still deeply hidden passion. Absloutely lovely!
🙂
It is a common thing for a woman to hear about or come across an unhealthy abusive relationship. Reading the lyrics to the song shows how an unhealthy relationship can affect someone’s mental and sometimes physical well being. Those doubts and insecurities that one might have can be played upon by the partner that wants be the controlling and domineering. Woman hold so much more power then we give ourselves credit for that we might not see it but men do and because of that their own insecurities that come into play they try and gain complete dominance by any means necessary. It is good to have an outlet and a friendship that can help the wounds heal the cycle of abuse to stop. By this woman writing this song it calls to light what happens to often with woman and young girls. There needs to be outlets for young women to gain or to rebuild their self esteem to help stop the cycle of abuse in relationship.
Wise words:
Woman hold so much more power then we give ourselves credit for that we might not see it but men do and because of that their own insecurities that come into play they try and gain complete dominance by any means necessary.
Thanks Georgia, for sharing this heart-wrenching experience and song. Lovely!
And thanks to my student, David, who wrote it. 🙂