Something
It's almost George Harrison's birthday soon, and in honor of my favorite Beatle, let me share something about one of my favorite songs.
Worthy of note that George is, to no one's surprise, a Pisces. It's no secret how intensely and passionately water signs are attracted to each other. But somehow, I still find myself quite enthralled any time I find myself crossing paths with a Pisces. Once or twice a beloved, often a friend, other times a singer (or a song), but almost never an enemy. As if anyone - or anything - created between the nineteenth of February to the twentieth of March always carries with them a some fragment of the universe's language that fits so perfectly into the messy narrative that is my life.
Or maybe I'm just overreacting, the way all believers of the zodiac often do.
But I digress.
So George. He who wrote two of the greatest Beatles songs in my opinion. I've wept a few dozen times to the sweeping guitar solos of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" in the course of my twenty-seven years. It's powerful, and compelling, and speaks of a wistful longing for something unrealized: peace, calm, universal contentment. It's a song whose lament addresses nobody and everybody at the same time.
On the other hand, despite being one of my most played songs on any music platform, I can remember crying over "Something" only once - and it was over the smallest, most inconsequential of things.
I was washing my hair one night, after a long day of school. With my Spotify on random, I carefully placed my iPad by the edge of the sink and before getting into the shower. The songs playing were all familiar; I don't like listening to new songs while taking a bath because I can't whisper along (okay fine, sing along; of course I take advantage of toilet acoustics like any other normal vocal-talent-deprived individual). So "Something" played and I welcomed the opening riffs like a lover's expected arrival.
And then suddenly, while reaching for the shower head, I felt my right foot slip and found myself scrambling for balance while grasping at the walls. My elbows hit the pail in front of me, and I ended up in a kneeling position. With water still running down my face, it dawned on me that I could've gotten seriously injured. Or died. One moment I was elongating my "O's", crooning along to "Something in the way she wooooos me," - and the next, I was sprawled on the floor, almost another statistic to freak accident mortality rates.
I immediately peeped through my shower curtain and looked at the door. It wasn't locked - like usual, because I never lock my bathroom door for exactly this precise reason. And yet, and yet, I was suddenly caught in this cocoon of terror. What if no one found me? What if I pressed the lock by mistake? Running water would have made my corpse decompose terribly.
And then, almost instantly, true to Scorpio-sun form, I found myself in a fit of laughter. Partly because a few months before that, I had just undergone a major operation, and was told that I almost lost my life. To have survived all that, only to perish by slipping inside the bathroom would have been the greatest - if not most ironic, comedic, almost-Shakespearean - tragedy of them all. But also, partly because, it's George Harrison. To die to a Beatles song is the stuff awards-show-circuits indie films are made of. But to slip into a coma to a George Harrison song - he of the mystic arts, psychedelic meditation, and sitar sublimation - what a way to go. It would have led me straight to the gates of nirvana, with Krishna welcoming me with open arms as I ride my chariot, with sitars playing in the background. "Something in the way she moves..." What a glorious entrance, ain't it?
This isn't a public service announcement discouraging you from listening to the Beatles while taking a bath. (Although it can be partly about reminding people to buy bath mats for the shower!) This is, however, my small way of sending out my birthday wish to the man who has either pushed me to the brink of almost another ending, or has pulled me through yet another near resurrection.
Either way, I am glad. Thank you for your music, George, but you know I'm most grateful for this song. It's taken me to the most bizarre of places: sadness, fear, thankfulness, contentment. "Something" has this something that will always carry me through. Any time I'm placed in a situation that makes me feel unsure, I listen to this and it puts things back in perspective. I am reminded that someone looks and thinks of me this way: that I am a creature worth embracing, worth loving, worth not leaving. There are the people in my life who love me, yes. Of course. And then there's George. Pisces, prophet, perpetual and ever-effervescent in his devotion to all that is divine.
I'll walk down the aisle, I'll run through the fields, I'll chase all my dreams with this song playing in the background. Happiest birthday, George. You know I believe and how.
Worthy of note that George is, to no one's surprise, a Pisces. It's no secret how intensely and passionately water signs are attracted to each other. But somehow, I still find myself quite enthralled any time I find myself crossing paths with a Pisces. Once or twice a beloved, often a friend, other times a singer (or a song), but almost never an enemy. As if anyone - or anything - created between the nineteenth of February to the twentieth of March always carries with them a some fragment of the universe's language that fits so perfectly into the messy narrative that is my life.
Or maybe I'm just overreacting, the way all believers of the zodiac often do.
But I digress.
So George. He who wrote two of the greatest Beatles songs in my opinion. I've wept a few dozen times to the sweeping guitar solos of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" in the course of my twenty-seven years. It's powerful, and compelling, and speaks of a wistful longing for something unrealized: peace, calm, universal contentment. It's a song whose lament addresses nobody and everybody at the same time.
On the other hand, despite being one of my most played songs on any music platform, I can remember crying over "Something" only once - and it was over the smallest, most inconsequential of things.
I was washing my hair one night, after a long day of school. With my Spotify on random, I carefully placed my iPad by the edge of the sink and before getting into the shower. The songs playing were all familiar; I don't like listening to new songs while taking a bath because I can't whisper along (okay fine, sing along; of course I take advantage of toilet acoustics like any other normal vocal-talent-deprived individual). So "Something" played and I welcomed the opening riffs like a lover's expected arrival.
And then suddenly, while reaching for the shower head, I felt my right foot slip and found myself scrambling for balance while grasping at the walls. My elbows hit the pail in front of me, and I ended up in a kneeling position. With water still running down my face, it dawned on me that I could've gotten seriously injured. Or died. One moment I was elongating my "O's", crooning along to "Something in the way she wooooos me," - and the next, I was sprawled on the floor, almost another statistic to freak accident mortality rates.
I immediately peeped through my shower curtain and looked at the door. It wasn't locked - like usual, because I never lock my bathroom door for exactly this precise reason. And yet, and yet, I was suddenly caught in this cocoon of terror. What if no one found me? What if I pressed the lock by mistake? Running water would have made my corpse decompose terribly.
And then, almost instantly, true to Scorpio-sun form, I found myself in a fit of laughter. Partly because a few months before that, I had just undergone a major operation, and was told that I almost lost my life. To have survived all that, only to perish by slipping inside the bathroom would have been the greatest - if not most ironic, comedic, almost-Shakespearean - tragedy of them all. But also, partly because, it's George Harrison. To die to a Beatles song is the stuff awards-show-circuits indie films are made of. But to slip into a coma to a George Harrison song - he of the mystic arts, psychedelic meditation, and sitar sublimation - what a way to go. It would have led me straight to the gates of nirvana, with Krishna welcoming me with open arms as I ride my chariot, with sitars playing in the background. "Something in the way she moves..." What a glorious entrance, ain't it?
This isn't a public service announcement discouraging you from listening to the Beatles while taking a bath. (Although it can be partly about reminding people to buy bath mats for the shower!) This is, however, my small way of sending out my birthday wish to the man who has either pushed me to the brink of almost another ending, or has pulled me through yet another near resurrection.
Either way, I am glad. Thank you for your music, George, but you know I'm most grateful for this song. It's taken me to the most bizarre of places: sadness, fear, thankfulness, contentment. "Something" has this something that will always carry me through. Any time I'm placed in a situation that makes me feel unsure, I listen to this and it puts things back in perspective. I am reminded that someone looks and thinks of me this way: that I am a creature worth embracing, worth loving, worth not leaving. There are the people in my life who love me, yes. Of course. And then there's George. Pisces, prophet, perpetual and ever-effervescent in his devotion to all that is divine.
I'll walk down the aisle, I'll run through the fields, I'll chase all my dreams with this song playing in the background. Happiest birthday, George. You know I believe and how.
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