Sade
In everything she does, there is a whisper of a romance being told.
In fact, Sade is practically synonymous with it; and more than likely shall forever be, what with the way she had such an emphatic hold on both its sound and structure in the late 80’s, going into the 90’s.
As sirenic and almost ancient as her physical beauty may be (without any dared semblance of a doubt saying otherwise), what was the most alluring of all that belonged to her was that voice – smooth and of velvet, with almost a completely permanent reverb that would never leave any of her repertoire.
Everywhere that you may hear her, you may hear her so, echoing into a cinematically love-struck scene of her making; painted with nothing but the tools at her disposal.
All of which was her voice, as stated. And alongside it, her lyrics.
Full of free flowing verse and a place of origin that may be unknown, but entirely seen with what she says and remembers. Such was another attribute of hers that was most certainly a force to be reckoned with.
And mind you, during her era, she was surrounded by other contemporaries that were close, if not bridging upon, the same caliber as her.
And yet, none had ever really had the chance of rivaling. For none could rival her ability to tell a story of love, and then just as easily – with the same air and sultry nature – regale that of a tragedy, wherein one’s heart was taken not by romance, but by time, who dooms us all at its own pace.
For one so heavily scarred and all-emcompassingly wounded by it as a veteran’s, a tale to recall how such became so should be quite a task.
But not to Sade. Dare it be said, that to her, it was as simple as listening, and taking the words being spoken as poetic gospel.
Retelling
The guitar strums like memory itself. Not just a singular one, but the entire entity that is memory.
If it were to sound like one thing, it would sound like this. And if such an intimate revelation of one’s true being were to be revealed to anyone, it would be to Sade, who is such a gifted and yet personal narrator.
“He told me sweet lies of sweet loves,
Heavy with the burden of the truth.
And he spoke of his dreams,
Broken by the burden –
Broken by the burden of his youth…”
She is no stranger to being at the helm of one’s story. Somewhere either at its center or watching it unfold from some untold and yet witnessing distance, she relays all that she sees in such dream-like detail.
But there is an audible difference in this particular track, between the tones she’s established in ones past, and this one.
Here, she is not so much experiencing, as she is lending a shoulder to cry on; to weep into the hollow of her neck where it is warm and indicating of a lively pulse, beating into a bleeding heart that remains soft and kind, rather than aflutter with fear at such an amass of memories being spilled out for a stranger such as herself to be left with.
To the one of which it comes spewing from, it is a burden. She recalls so – remembers so – twice. But through her singing her remembrance, it does not flow that way to her. Or in plainer words, it is in no way a burden to receive, as it is for them to tell. Rather, it is this tearful gift, hearing how 14 years were wasted on the stealing and destroying of a youth that was disrupted by war, and the foretold and yet individual traumas that come with it.
What lies that tried any sort of convincing throughout was instead before all that would transpire, of which is gathered from Sade in her retelling. ‘Lies of sweet loves’, in what could be dared to be seen as the foundation of this story, were the lies that come from the promise of what should be one’s youth.
And to remove the general template – this veteran’s youth, in particular.
May it be boldly said, as well as assumed, that every child that becomes a soldier is sold the lies of what will become of what it vaguely is that they’ll be protecting while serving; what will be preserved in all of its innocence and purity, while they will be fighting, and – in fighting – lose theirs.
And even before that, with the lies that come from just being a child, period. They are shared as things to be treasured from the ones that have already lived long before them. Little is it ever known on their part, that in this passing over from elder hands to that of one younger, there is for them – and indeed – a burden of a choice to either keep what it is safe, or to dispose of it in lieu of a better, newer future.
Much to the misfortune of soldiers, as is exemplified in this track, the future is not what they tend to herald.
And what the latter is at all from the beginning is often forgotten.
What is remembered instead, against all semblance of what should be cherished and valued in the here and now, is what sordidness that leaves them to be shells; with only an emptiness that is evaded by way of what soul that remains, that themselves has tears to shed.
And pasts to mourn never having, while they have the one they are now and have been cursed with.
“I remember his hands,
And the way the mountains looked.
The lights shot diamonds from his eyes;
Hungry for life,
And thirsty for the distant river…”
The Final Verse
Another thing that is so memorable of this track, is that at one point Sade is no longer the one narrating.
In fact, she saves such a reveal for the end, wherein its namesake is finally mentioned so fittingly from the mouth of the one she’s since had the pleasure of lying a palm upon their treaded and beaten path:
“I still feel the chill –
As I reveal my shame to you;
I wear it like a tattoo,
I wear it like a tattoo,
I wear it like a tattoo…”
Even with the lyrics before you – in reading them, it is written that she is suddenly quoting; letting them take the reins that, perhaps formerly, felt so reckless with them in their hands. The leather of their tattered nature, having since burned into their palms a permanent redness and pain that makes the instinctual shape of a fist agonizing, and the even more instinctual habit of thinking back come in the form of a splitting headache.
Or worse: upon both the skin and a limb so visible, it is the marring – the branding – of a memory, never to fade with time or be worn proudly like some scars from war tend to be.
With time, as they say.
With time, they all heal.
Tattoos, even, as well as wounds and others akin.
Flake and itch and thrum though they may with a ceaseless and ever-present ache, it is only a matter of a laying of a hand on where it sits, rooted in a tired spirit and etched atop an ailing flesh.
Then can it warm under its gentle hold – soft and secure, and singularly Sade’s; and connected to it an imploring gaze, and a dulcet voice that sings of a forgiveness for sins not committed towards her, but on behalf of what sweet lies there were to have never had.
All is now fair in love, and in no war.
Let her lead you, now, to that distant river, which is no longer as far as a battlefield away.