GABRIELA YARELIZ

Wanna Say It Now, Wanna Make It Clear

By: Gabriela Yareliz

We’ve made it to the end of our journey with our music leading up to Valentine’s Day. We are ending with a song that Gwen Stefani is featured on, but it’s not her song. We are ending with Blake Shelton’s “Nobody But You.” This song gives me all the feels. Every.Single.Time.

What do I love about it? Several things. First, I love every single word in the lyrics. I love that it shows how good it can be to start again and have something be redeemed in your life. I love that it shows two people, who are opposites, completely in love. There is a scene in the music video where they are on a stage, and she is in her typical glitter getup, and he is wearing a blazer with jeans.

The song appeals to my southern side, and it goes against convention. The first stanza is all about how he feels he doesn’t need anything other than her. He is also saying he will make sure that he tells her how he feels because he won’t be caught with the regret of wondering who she married, years down the line. It’s a song about declaring your love for someone, and this time, it’s reciprocated.

My favorite lines in this song, which are so passionately sung by the duo, are:

Wanna say it now, wanna make it clear
For only you and God to hear
When you love someone, they say you set ’em free
But that ain’t gonna work for me

There is an intentionality and clarity in these lines. They aren’t letting go of each other, and not in a creepy possessive way, but in a way that shows a mature love that they are willing to fight for. It’ll overcome obstacles. It’s loyal. It’s staying.

One of the most powerful images in this music video (gives me chills) is seeing Gwen Stefani in her gown emerge from leaves in a wood like a phoenix (exactly at second :37). Stefani in a gown is no new thing. We have seen her in a million gowns in past videos sobbing on the floor. This time it’s different. She is emerging from the ground, powerful, beautiful and loved. RISING FROM THE ASHES LIKE A BOSS.

There is a stability to this song that we haven’t seen in her previous music. They both reflect on their love histories and pasts. They sing, “All the wasted days, all the wasted nights– I blame it all on being young. Got no regrets, ’cause they got me here, but I don’t wanna waste another one.” There is a recognition of mistakes but a determination to move forward in a better way. While they wish they hadn’t endured all of their suffering, they are clear on the fact that all of these moments in the end are not wasted because it made them who they are today and brought them together. Somehow, their roads met.

In the end, they have been thinking about what they want in life, and the one thing is each other. This song has a finality to it. That’s it. There are no other roads to be wandered down; there are no other paths to be taken. They have found each other, and this song is letting the world know, they don’t want to love anyone but the person they are with.

In 2020, Blake Shelton proposed to Gwen Stefani. There is a wedding coming our way. Our songwriting heroine got her first #1 on the charts, with this song. If you ask me, there is no better song to make #1 than this one. She is happy. Stefani has found a man who apparently treats her with respect and adores her. It’s the ending we all dream of, and the truth is, we know every ending is a new beginning.

Stefani’s broken heart has given us some raw and heart-wrenching ballads. But Stefani’s happy heart has given us a #1. We sometimes make the mistake of thinking love has to be dramatic and painful. It doesn’t. There are imperfect good souls out there. The desired person can come your way looking nothing like what you pictured, but being exactly what you needed and wanted had you known.

This one goes out to the ones who are going hard after what and who they want; the ones who rise from the ground into new strength; the ones who know there is strength in lasting love, a love that chooses one and stays.

Wishing each of you finds someone you don’t want to live without.

Happy Valentine’s Day! xx

I Was Fine Before

By: Gabriela Yareliz

Love can sneak up on us. We can fall in love with someone we didn’t expect. Sometimes, it’s someone who has been in front of us for a while. Today, we are looking at when love seems to show up as a divine interruption, via Gwen Stefani’s “Make Me Like You.”

The video was filmed in one take at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards; a very unique performance. (Source) The video starts out looking black and white. She wakes up in the middle of a wreck. Then, she is whisked away into a colorful world where people are reading gossip magazines about her.

The protagonist of this song is someone who finds love in someone they did not expect, and it intrudes on her reality. Stefani starts by stating that she was “broken but fine,” “lost and uncertain” but her heart was her own. The truth is that life is so much easier when you are alone. Being alone isn’t hard. The challenge starts when you have to start taking another person into consideration, and each person is a different world with a different set of experiences and expectations. She sings that she was “all alone in a clear view, but now you are all I see.” Stefani is right to think that now things are getting complicated, as her heart starts to not just be her own. The truth is, one of the bravest things we can do is love another person.

She mentions she was “broken but free.” Here, just like in “Misery,” we have a reference to freedom and independence. We have a Stefani, post divorce, seeing a colleague as something more than a friend and colleague. *ENTER BLAKE SHELTON* And this is not an assumption. In the video, there is literally a neon sign on set that reads “Blakey.”

She mentions that it’s “not fair,” acting as if she is under a spell and this is something that he is doing to her, giving us a taste of the fact that she is falling for him and falling hard.

Stefani takes us on a journey about what it’s like to suddenly have your life interrupted by the unexpected but good. She details that she can see this relationship progressing, she likes it and can “get used to this.” She also, in true Stefani style, says bluntly and honestly, “But I’m so scared.” While the lyrics sound serious, the song is playful, upbeat and despite her apparent dismay regarding this man “making” her like him, she keeps repeating, “Thank God that I found you.” I love this line. Many of the best things in life, especially the encounters with people who surprise us, could not be planned by us. In fact, some of the most magical things in life are divine orchestration (and I dare say Stefani agrees with me, as a fellow believer and praying person).

This is a new moment for Gwen.

She said she was fine before– but who wants to be just “fine”? The festivities in the video show that while “fine” was ok, it’s time to embrace a new possibility– and it’s looking loud, exciting and bright. Sometimes, we need to trade fine for FABULOUS. It takes courage, but it can be one of the best decisions you make.

If you have been divinely interrupted and found good in unexpected places (Thank God)– this one goes out to you:

Sensible

By: Gabriela Yareliz

We are bopping today to Gwen Stefani’s “Misery,” and don’t let the title fool you. I am keeping my promise. This is not a sad song. This is not a song about her ex-husband. We left that behind us, and now we have a Gwen who is starting over. This song is the embodiment of the emotions we feel when a crush or love interest is new, or when something is in pre-relationship stage. You know that exciting time that I am talking about. It’s that euphoric stage when we are constantly searching the room for that person; it’s when we are trying to keep our cool, but we are giddy, nervous and excited– maybe a bit unsure, but we are getting bolder.

We can all relate to that first stanza where she sings, “I’m trying not to care, but where’d you go? I’m doing my best to be sensible.” I love the giddiness and bashful reluctance in this song. Also interesting is that she is wearing a head piece at the beginning of this music video that looks like the crown that Lady Liberty wears (#FREEDOM), but as the video progresses, she looks softer and more romantic.

A new love interest feels like drugs to us, Stefani sings. It’s someone we come back to repeatedly and want more of. You know, when you keep checking your phone, checking your surroundings, checking your inbox– you can’t focus, and honestly, you don’t want to. Being with that person is what takes you out of the “misery” of missing them.

What may have inspired this song? (We love to investigate this, don’t we?) BLAKE SHELTON. In past interviews, they’ve spoken about how they were both colleagues and going through a similar divorce, at the same time. They became friends and would check on each other. Then, suddenly, she was wondering if he missed her the way she missed him, when he wasn’t around, and vice versa.

In this song, Stefani sings that she feels drawn. She is “thinking things I never thought before.” Suddenly, a new window is opening. There is a chance. There is an opportunity to “taste” a new kind of love, and she can’t help but want all in.

One of the lines in the song says “Enough, enough of this suffering.” I think this could have a double meaning. It could be that her misery and suffering stems from this new man’s absence and his presence makes it disappear, but it could also be that she is calling on him to help end the pattern of suffering she has endured through her past relationships and history. She wants and needs someone who is different. We see Stefani on a bike looking youthful and her playful smirk as she sings, “you’re in so much trouble.”

We also see Stefani with a black horse in the video. This may not have been the intention, but given her artistry in past videos, it seems to be a symbol for something. Maybe the death of something old, and now she is venturing into something new. Typically, black horses symbolize mystery and allure, independence and intrigue.

There are times in life when we need something new. We need to allow ourselves to get playful. We need to give ourselves that new opportunity. We need to say “enough of this suffering” and have someone put us out of misery. We can always put ourselves out of misery, but the ultimate vulnerable line in this song is when she says, “So put me out of my misery.” She acknowledges that her misery ending is partly in someone else’s control, now. It is when the walls come down, and you are ready to look as foolish as you have to look. You are revealing your desires.

It’s pretty magical when you do meet that person where you always search the room for them. This song reminded me a little bit of quaratine and lockdowns. I didn’t see my boyfriend for a long time, when all of this started. Weeks. It was a crazy time of isolation. I know that I wanted to be put out of my misery. I guess my point is when you find as the French say la bonne personne, your person, this feeling of joy and wanting to be with someone doesn’t have to end. It’s not limited to the start of something new. An amazing partner makes every day feel like a new day; a day that is best spent in each other’s company.

This one goes out to anyone who is taking another chance on love. Stay open to receiving because you just might come across who you are looking for– someone who will put you out of your misery and end the suffering.

Looks like she found him.

I Don’t Know Why I Cry

By: Gabriela Yareliz

Today, we are looking at the last sad ballad (the last songs we will look at are happier– Happy Gwen). If our previous post was on “Early Winter,” we’ll call this one the late winter ballad. After the demise of her 13-year marriage to Gavin Rossdale due to his apparently multiple infidelities, two flopped singles (though one of the flops “Baby Don’t Lie” is an upbeat song about dealing with a liar in a relationship, highly recommend), we have her divorce anthem, “Used to Love You,” from her This Is What the Truth Feels Like album. Today, we sit with Gwen and ask all of the questions we all ask ourselves when something ends badly (namely, why did I fall for this person and how).

Some critics have said this is her best song since “Don’t Speak.” It’s the mature, 20-years-later version. (Source) There is no apparent story being acted out in the music video. The video is Stefani sitting in front of a black screen with a white top on, staring into the camera with eyes so pregnant with emotion you can swim in them. The story can be found in her facial expressions as she processes the song, going from anger, fury to sadness, and her voice’s inflection gives us her signature raw vulnerability.

Even after all those gripping ballads we have dissected, we have a Stefani who can’t believe this breakup actually happened. She held on for a long time. Sometimes in relationships, we coast in our dysfunction with a strange sense of “normalcy” but fail to realize that this is not sustainable. She sings, “I must be dreaming, you’re gone.” As he is pulling out of the driveway, she tells us she is thinking, “You can keep all the memories; I thought I was the best thing that ever happened to you. I thought you loved me the most.”

Stefani was most likely the best thing that happened to that man; she is right. What makes the heart grimace is when she sings, “I thought you loved me the most.” The most implies there were others in some sort of ranking. It means she wasn’t the only one, but the top one; and in the end, she realized she wasn’t even that.

The chorus hits us, and it’s words that articulate how anyone who has been let down in love has felt, at some point:

I don’t know why I cry
But I think it’s cause I remembered for the first time
Since I hated you
That I used to love you

Here we have two extremes, love and hate, all directed toward one person. It’s a weird thing when a relationship ends, and it ends badly. And this is not a Tony-Kanal-Don’t-Speak badly. See, Kanal and Stefani remained friends and had respect between them. Here, we have the rupture of a relationship where one party has been shown the ultimate disrespect, which is when a partner betrays the other. There is a deep pain and a realization that something has been irretrievably broken.

This song’s chorus repeats throughout, but the last verse essentially says that the relationship lacked boundaries, and she was pushed too far. Then, what follows is Stefani singing, “I guess nobody taught you, nobody taught you how to love.” This, my friends, is a pretty compassionate thing to say to someone who blows your life and dreams up in smoke.

Essentially, it’s the most mature way to see the people who f-up everything and everyone in their paths due to their own selfishness or narcissism. These people lack the fundamental understanding of what it is to love. They destroy because they aren’t capable of better in their current state. This doesn’t excuse anything (and in the end, they end up losing), but as a good friend of mine says, sometimes we expect people with no wings to fly.

There’s no point in dwelling and drowning in our mistakes. But Stefani leads us into an important introspection; A reminder that it’s important to see why things fail and why we chose who we chose. This is important to reflect on because if we do it, we are less likely to pick another wingless creature to fly beside us. That’s right, my friend, you were born to fly.

Cast off what’s weighing you down and who is weighing you down. Cry if you have to. Feel the anger, but then, let that person back out of the driveway, with all of the memories.

In the end, Stefani sings that she isn’t sure why she is crying. When a relationship ends badly, the Band-Aids used to hold the relationship together have been ripped off. The taut energy is gone, and you are left knowing it was the other person’s ultimate loss, despite the grief you feel, yourself.

To answer our previous question (in this series) about whether love can be past tense– Stefani shows us here that yes, there are people we used to love, but we’ll be all right because we are the best thing that happened to them.

To anyone who fell in love with a wingless creature who didn’t deserve you– this one goes out to you:

The Sun’s Getting Cold

By: Gabriela Yareliz

The Earth is in constant movement, causing seasons to come and go. There are times when the heart gets buried in snow. Today, we’ve got another ballad from Gwen Stefani’s Sweet Escape album: “Early Winter.” If you thought “4 in the Morning” was heartbreaking, here’s one to top it. Included in the same album, we see a Stefani who, while private with her personal life, is still using her music to pour out her emotions. As mentioned before, she was married for years to Gavin Rossdale, a real idiot if there ever was one. Rossdale disrespected her and their relationship with many lies and liaisons over the years.

The song begins with some sort of event that has caused a substantial crash in the relationship. Whatever it was caused more than a dent, evidenced by the lyrics: “You, you know how to get me so low; My heart had a crash when we spoke– I can’t fix what you broke.” She emphasizes that she is feeling something she has felt over and over again.

Stefani, in this song, plays with the concepts of hot and cold again (we looked at “Cool“), and she also focuses on the parallel between the seasons in a relationship and the actual seasons we experience due to the Earth’s movement and tilt. Relationships are dynamic. They have highs and lows, and things shift as life speeds onward. The relationship she is singing about in this song has no sunshine. She sings, “It hurts, and I can’t remember sunlight.” She mentions that the leaves are changing. Winter is a season of deep cold, darkness and death. Stefani sings that it’s cold and snowing. Maybe, she also feels that just as winter is dormant, something in her heart is numb. (You know that feeling when your fingers are so cold they are stiff– the heart can feel that way, too).

The verses that I find to be so key in this song are the following:

It’s sad the map of the world is on you
The moon gravitates around you
The seasons escape you

Stefani sings that her counterpart is a self-centered person– the moon gravitates around that person, which also implies that there is a lot of darkness involved. The moon is revealed to us at night, has no light of its own, and it’s also something that is ever changing to us, as we see different sides of it illuminated. Then, she states that the seasons escape this person. Just as in “4 in the Morning,” Stefani reveals herself to be the one crying and suffering, alone. It’s like she is the only one awake or looking out the window. She feels how the relationship is dying while this other person feels nothing and is so far gone, they don’t perceive the shifts. And take it from someone who experiences all four literal seasons– there is a big difference from summer to winter. Having been slammed with inches of snow in the past few weeks, winter is something that is obviously felt and not subtle. The fact that the seasons escape this other person’s world is quite the statement.

Self-centered people are like this, though. It’s the person making decisions to serve him/herself not keeping others in consideration; he/she is constantly giving excuses or justifications or as Stefani sings, “you always have a reason.” It’s almost like this person is blind. There is no way to make him/her see what is obviously in front of him/her. Just like when you are trapped in a bad snow storm– visibility is zero.

In the bridge, Stefani is very direct and asks bluntly, “Why? Why do you act so stupid?” The language in the question is a big contrast to the glamorous gowns and gold palace Stefani seems to be singing and crying in. “Early Winter” is a song that will be felt deeply by anyone who has experienced pain as a result of someone else’s poor decisions and/or lies. It’s about a low point she is not sure there is any coming back from.

Eventually, the anguish of dealing with lies and a broken relationship lead to a silent stillness– death of the relationship. Thankfully, the icy winters work to preserve something, so that when spring breaks forth, a new beginning can emerge.

If you have seen the leaves start to fall in your own relationship– this one goes out to you. Remember, after every winter, spring is sure to come.

Give Me Everything

By: Gabriela Yareliz

The need for transparency in a relationship– this is what today’s Gwen Stefani song “4 in the Morning” is all about. This song is criminally underrated. The song was co-written and produced by Tony Kanal. Yup, ex-boyfriend Tony Kanal. Tony always pops up. We can count on that. He is brilliant with Stefani; we’ll give credit where credit is due. At this point in Stefani’s life, she is married to Gavin Rossdale, who we briefly introduced in our last post (she based “Underneath it all” on her relationship with him). And while Stefani said she wanted a nice ballad on her second solo album Sweet Escape, and this one definitely fits the bill, one can’t help but wonder what was happening in that relationship, at the time, that inspired this song. She began writing the song while pregnant, and she finished the song with Kanal. (Source) It’s also eerie that years later, shortly after having their third child, they would divorce due to his long affair with the nanny. Trashy, Rossdale. Trashy. Trashy doesn’t even cut it, but back to Stefani, the real hero of this song–

This song is one where the protagonist is clearly carrying a lot of pain. She feels that her relationship is at a fork in the road where she is deciding whether it’s “worth the fight” because “if we’re gonna do it, come on, do it right.” The lyrics make clear that she doesn’t feel safe, and that’s all she wanted– but she doesn’t want to give up. (We hate giving up. Sometimes, we almost kill ourselves in the process of holding onto things that are toxic). The key here is that she feels she is giving her 100%, and he is not giving it his all. She pleads with him, saying that if they are going to make it work, he needs to give her everything. What a terrible feeling of pain and dread knowing you aren’t getting the same vulnerability and sincerity you are putting into something. She makes clear that she isn’t getting all his love, singing, “Save all your love up for me.” There is a tinge of betrayal in this song. She flags a broken promise and the injustice of the exchange or lack thereof.

“It’s not fair how you are; I can’t be complete, can you give me more?” is one of the lines that stands out to me in this song. She sings that she is up at 4 in the morning (the title of the song) thinking and crying about this. The main thing on her mind is she wants something real: “I’m handin’ over everything that I’ve got, ’cause I wanna have a really true love. Don’t ever wanna have to go and give you up.”

Sadly enough, Stefani does end up having to give up Rossdale. He ends up breaking more than one promise, and the desire of the protagonist in this song doesn’t become a reality in Stefani’s real life until much later (and not with Rossdale).

In a world that sees love as compatibility, emotion, attraction, often in the dynamic there is a clear thing missing from the equation, and without it, things fall apart: vulnerability. There are people who are unavailable despite what they may feel is them being available. Sometimes, we can’t put our finger on it, we just feel it. We know that someone isn’t giving us 100%. Relationships are never 50-50 but 100-100. The damage that a lack of transparency inflicts on a relationship is deep, even when the affected party is willing to fight for the relationship. It takes two to make it work. To leave someone empty handed with just pieces of you leaves them hungry for more and filled with an unease that is hard to describe and suffocating to feel.

A partner observing their partner carry on as they feel their relationship is teetering on the edge of death leads to a partner who starts emotionally shutting down to match the unavailable party. This song reminded me a little bit of Nikki Bella’s very public relationship with John Cena. I do think they loved each other, but his inaccessibilty and distance with her ended in resentment and suffering on her part. She ended the relationship publicly before their long awaited (LONG AWAITED) marriage. I think this was such a bold move. She realized that by accepting less than 100% from a partner, she was denying a part of herself (more on this in the post “Honoring Self“). As Stefani sings, you can’t have the real thing (a healthy functional relationship stemming from true love) unless both people are giving all of themselves to the other.

If you aren’t getting 100% from someone, take a page out of these bold women’s books and realize, it will not end well. If you are giving all of you, you deserve someone who is willing and ready to do the same. Avoid the tears at 4 in the morning. They aren’t worth it. The video is stunning, vulnerable and filled with 4 am tears. For the people giving their 100– this one goes out to you:

You Make Me Better

By: Gabriela Yareliz

Today’s song is a No Doubt classic, “Underneath It All.” We start out with Gwen Stefani admitting that she sometimes thinks she needs someone more like her, but then she says that despite their differences this special person is lovely and loves her, “underneath it all.” This person sees the colors in her like no one else, she sings.

It’s a song where we are diving deeper and past appearances and the “dark glasses” people wear, and we look at who they are “underneath it all.” It’s about the sides we know of people that others do not know or have access to. Intimacy. I read that Stefani wrote this song after a day at the park with Gavin Rossdale (before he was her husband). Apparently, after the excursion she wrote in her journal: “You’re lovely underneath it all.” (Source)

Underneath it all, Stefani says she is lucky. As it seems to be a relationship where there are a lot of differences, they are both putting in their effort. She refers to the relationship as an incomplete “dress rehearsal”. Still, Stefani recognizes his efforts, singing, “But lately you’ve been trying real hard, and giving me your best” and remarks that “when it’s really bad, I guess it’s not that bad.”

I find this to be a song of recognition and true appreciation. It acknowledges that things aren’t perfect, but they are worth it. That’s love. The song makes clear that the highlight of the subject relationship is that this person makes her better.

What counts are the people who are around when things are hard; the ones who make the effort. The person that, despite the fact that you have seen “many moons” together, still makes you feel lucky. It’s about looking at the one you are with and feeling like enough when they’ve “used up all their coupons” and all they have left is you.

One of my favorite aspects of the music video is how Stefani’s appearance morphs as the video progresses. She starts off looking stunning and glam on a couch wearing a huge coat and tons of makeup. A VIBE. The video ends with Stefani dressed in a simple white stripped down outfit looking very bare faced minimal. A nice touch for a song that celebrates what is underneath it all.

Who makes you better? Who do you love without all the frills, underneath it all? Who sees the colors in you like no one else?

The Dreaming Days

By: Gabriela Yareliz

Today, we are looking at the song “Cool” by Gwen Stefani. Can we start off by saying that this song and the music video are a masterpiece? If you haven’t seen the video– you must. (Don’t worry, it’s included at the end of this post).

Why is it a masterpiece, you ask? I mean the song sends a nuanced message about maturity. I want to focus on the story the video portrays– Stefani is visited by her ex and his new lady. Yes. You read that right. And the person who plays the ex’s new love interest is none other than Tony Kanal’s (her real ex-bf and bandmate) real life partner. Yes, this saga continues. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. Gwen greets them in her GINORMOUS mansion, looking like an old Hollywood icon (this is probably her most fashionable music video, ever).

First things first, this song is about two people who love(d)* each other when they were young. They meet during “the dreaming days,” where Stefani says “the mess was made.” Then she refers to themselves as children who have grown (“Look how all the kids have grown”).

*It’s up for debate whether this should be past tense…

The song starts off where she says it’s hard to remember how she felt before, you know, now that she has a new last name and new love in her life. (We get it Gwen, you are now married and fabulous). She remarks that it’s a miracle that she and this ex remain such good friends after all they’ve “been through.” *coughs* TONY.

Anyway, despite the mature musings as the song begins, what I love in the video is that the minute she and her ex make eye contact, a series of memories starts flashing before us, and we see her and the young guy prancing through what looks like the Italian Lake Como — Stefani looking young, fresh and brunette.

Stefani sings, “Memories seem like so long ago, time always kills the pain,” and yet the memories keep flooding in. She then weirdly invites her ex’s new lady to sit next to her, and she takes off a ring from her finger and puts it on the new girl. Not sure what the hell that is about. The whole point is they are “cool.” Oh.so.cool.

Listen, personally, I am of the school of thought that if you remain super close and good friends with your ex you are slightly psychopathic. I think there need to be boundaries, and people need to move on. Obviously, there are people and certain types of exes that will need to remain in your life like, for example, if you have children together. That person is there to stay, and it’s nice if you can have a cordial relationship with that person. Maturity and civility do not equal being best friends. So the first thing I like about the video is its civility and class. It’s clear they haven’t seen each other in years. She runs her hands through her bleach blonde hair, in a cute reintroduction moment. It’s good to be “cool” with someone. That doesn’t mean super close and familiar. I mean, “cool” has a certain connotation. There is a distance included in the word.

What I appreciate in this song and video is Stefani’s sincerity. The true meaning of this song is more explicitly revealed in the video. If you listen to the song half distracted, you sort of miss the nuance in its message. What is happening in the video is the opposite of what she is saying (and the lyrics themselves subtly reveal this toward the end). She talks about how she doesn’t remember and how time heals the pain, but if you pay attention, each time their eyes meet or they drink out of those classy little tea cups, something is happening. She remembers. She is in pain. Stefani has those large dark eyes that reveal all secrets.

The truth is, when you share something special with someone– that doesn’t just go away because it ended, even if it ended badly. You can’t erase life. Sometimes, as humans, we don’t give ourselves permission to be human. It is my belief that when you really, truly love someone, that doesn’t go away. Now, things may shift because people may hurt you or people may reveal themselves to be something far from what you thought you loved, but the person you did love, that stays. One can love another and move on, but no one can replace another. That’s a fact. That lingering pain and absence we feel is part of our DNA. It means we are alive. If the love you felt toward someone (regardless of whether they reciprocated) doesn’t “endure all things,” then is it love at all?

Stefani reveals the delusion of her prior lyrics, when she sings, “And I’ll be happy for you, if you can be happy for me.” This lyric toward the end of the song starts to subtly tie the song to the emotion made blunt in the music video.

The part that gets me is when she sings, “We have changed, but we’re still the same.” Ain’t that the truth. She looks at him with so much sadness. She sings that they are “cool,” but she looks broken. She is everything but ok in this video. Then the question becomes whether “friendship” and connection with someone you love and are not with is worth it. Is being “cool” worth it? Is “cool” really “cool”? Is “cool” real or is it a mask we wear while we remember?

Watch the video, and you decide. Stefani shows us once again that sometimes, as a coping mechanism, the person we lie to the most is ourselves. Interestingly enough, the heart isn’t always listening.

Choking on All Our Contradictions

By: Gabriela Yareliz

It’s the age old story– good girl loves bad boy (let’s face it, there are “bad girls,” too). The movies are chock-full with this storyline– Princess Mia had a crush on Josh, the boating moron, and not the nice guy next door. Not only are movies and tv shows saturated with this notion, but we do it in real life. I think this happens more in our younger years. It’s like the Rory and Jess story (Gilmore Girls). We think we can be some random exception in some troubled or arrogant person’s life. Wrong. But we like to try, and this is exactly what “Bathwater” by No Doubt is all about.

This song is all about a young and “insecure” woman who decides to try to be in a relationship with someone who has serious baggage, or as Gwen Stefani sings, a “museum of lovers,” a “precious collection” that has been housed beneath his covers. She states that the “bags are much too heavy in my insecure condition.” What I find interesting is the fact that she may not be as insecure as she thinks. I think we often label people as insecure if they are worried about exes and other factors in a relationship, but sometimes, someone’s history is just concerning. That should be a red flag. It’s not so much that the one person seeing things clearly is insecure, but that the other party may have serious impediments to or no desire to have a healthy, stable relationship with one person.

There are people who are constantly flirting with the opposite sex, or they exhibit other behaviors that are simply inappropriate to a neutral, sane mind, and it starts to eat up the sane person inside.

Follow me on this next example– in Sex and The City, Samantha Jones, the most sexually explicit and confident of the bunch, starts dating Richard Wright, a wealthy hotel magnate. He is a jerk and is clearly always flirting with other women, and he actually ends up cheating on her repeatedly. Interestingly enough, she suspects this. She feels it in her stomach and decides to go undercover to catch him, and she does. My point is, Samantha was never an insecure woman, but she knew who she was dealing with, and in the end, she was right. (It almost drives her insane in the process). Their breakup scene has that iconic line where she tells him: “I love you too, Richard, but I love me more.“

The truth is, when we do try to make these doomed relationships work (and they are doomed simply from the get-go because the person doesn’t have what it takes to be who we need them to be), we end up telling ourselves lies, mentally, to appease the mind. We do as Stefani sings, we love to think that they couldn’t love another, and deep down inside we also recognize we are “diving into our own destruction.”

Maybe, you’ve been there. Maybe, you’ve washed in someone’s “old bathwater” and told yourself they “couldn’t love another,” and then it fell flat. Maybe, you are there now, as Stefani sings, “choking on all your contradictions.” Don’t set yourself up for failure by pursuing something that is destined to be a dumpster fire. You deserve a clean bath without someone’s cloudy bathwater. Like Samantha Jones had to do, love yourself more.

Sipping on Chamomile

By: Gabriela Yareliz

Alright, alright, alright (even though in journalism school they teach you it should always be “all right”). Our last musical-journey-to-Valentine’s-Day posts were heavy. I know. It’s not all sad and heavy, though. No. We’re going into a more fun territory today. We are looking at No Doubt’s “Hey Baby.” First of all, I LOVE this song. I remember being a kid in the back of the car going to the grocery store to get milk with the fam, and this song would come on the radio, and I was like, YES! It’s upbeat, fun and explosive.

This song was from No Doubt’s album Rock Steady; the single was released in 2001. I was 10-11 years old. A couple things about this video, it’s sensory overload, Gwen’s every expression is silly and a mood, and the band is just having a ball.

The song starts out basically narrated by Stefani, talking about how she is the girl who always hangs with the guys, “Like a fly on the wall with my secret eyes, takin’ it in, try to be feminine, with my make-up bag, watching all the sin.”

She continues, “Misfit, I sit, lit up, wicked. Everybody else surrounded by the girls with the tank tops and the flirty words. I’m just sipping on chamomile; watching boys and girls and their sex appeal, with a stranger in my face who says he knows my mom and went to my high school.”

This part always makes me smile. To me, Gwen in this song was always relatable. I have never been the girl with the large group of girlfriends. It’s not me. Never has been, and at this point, clear it never will be. This reminds me of the junior high days, when I would hang out with three guys at church who were my best friends (Jonathan, Anthony and Arturo). They were a bit older than me, and we’d go on all kinds of adventures, whether it was a stroll around the block or when our church went camping, adventures in the woods. We’d climb, roll down hills (when we’d lose our footing), and find mysterious shacks in the woods. When we rented that old historic church on Linden Blvd, we made it to the bell tower (I wasn’t supposed to be up there), and we’d scare each other in the church basement and make up stupid stories. I remember one day, a lady from the church pulled me aside and told me that she thought it was odd that I didn’t hang out with the girls around my age, who would huddle together in their groups and gossip. I told her no thanks.

I loved being the girl hanging with the guys in the parking lot while they talked about their girlfriends (or lame crushes), the new black bracelet fad, the latest Eminem song and how to redo stunts from the Jacka** movie. I still have a photo of all of us in a camp cabin in my childhood keepsake box. I am standing next to them in a black t-shirt with my hair pulled back in a ponytail, bangs disheveled and slightly sticking up– I look like one of them. They were my favorite people to hang out with. The truth was I didn’t have to be anything when I was with them, and I loved that. With them, I was the fly on the wall with the secret eyes. I partook in every adventure without being look down on. We were a team.

(From left) Arturo, Jonathan; yup, that’s me between the bunks, and Anthony is behind me. Their little brother Giovanni snuck into the photo.

Listen, this is not a deep song. It’s a song whose video takes place at a party where makeout sessions are happening. Still, to me, it reminds me of wild days of carefree innocence; the last ones. This is the song that has that “I-just-walked-in-and-the-party-started” vibe. While I am not pro parties and making out with randos, the song does have this youthful innocence to it. It reeks of puberty. This song is from the times where the thoughts that consumed us were who is hot, who is not; who likes who, and how long is that gonna last.

This song is about the joys of being careless and young. While I never was the one at the party (not even in high school), I was surrounded by friends who had their fair share of parties and boyfriends. The cafeteria was filled with stories. (See, I was always still the fly on the wall with the secret eyes). And because my mom is a teacher, there was a big probability that the person sitting next to me did know my mom and went to my high school.

Go back with me to the innocent days when we were all crushing on someone, and the high hopes we carried when we’d walk into a room to get noticed: Hey Baby. Whether you were the one sipping on chamomile like me, or you were the ones at the party with the sex appeal– this song is gonna take you back, no matter who you were in your youth.