No Secrets
Do you tell your lover everything?
I was hiking in the mountains last Sunday night listening to my Wendy Waldman MP3s. I’m recovering from a pinched nerve in my back and I’ve been overwhelmed and I was testing my body and I just couldn’t handle anything new, I needed to hear the music of an old friend.
What stunned me was I suddenly understood the lyrics.
Oh, I’d always gotten the words. But decades later, as an adult, I understood the situations. Of lovers leaving, wondering if they’re ever going to come back. Of telling others to stay away. About coming to California and wondering what will be.
The singer-songwriters of yore were wise beyond their years. How did they know so much about life?
And driving west on Olympic earlier this afternoon I heard Carly Simon’s "We Have No Secrets" on Sirius XM’s The Bridge.
Time has not been kind to Ms. Simon. An iconic star in the early seventies, she’s been forgotten since. One could question her output, but the fact that she refused to go on the road contributed to her obscurity.
But there was that one moment, at the end of ’72, when not only could you not escape "You’re So Vain" on the radio, but you didn’t want to. It’s the "…Baby One More Time" of the seventies. Yes, Britney Spears might have questionable talent, but I immediately went out and bought the album and I’m proud of it, because that’s a killer cut. Enhanced, of course, by Britney shaking her tits in that dance move in the video, but "…Baby One More Time" stands tall without the clip.
"You’re So Vain" is a masterpiece. Credit Richard Perry. From the intro to Carly’s growl to Mick Jagger’s backup vocal everything is in the right place, enhancing each and every other part. And "You’re So Vain" being so good, I bought the album, even though I owned none of Ms. Simon’s previous work.
And back then you played the complete album. Because "No Secrets" was only thirty six and a half minutes long and we believed artists had something to say. I played the rest of Britney’s debut, just to be sure, but only once. I played "No Secrets" numerous times. And the second best cut is the title track, "We Have No Secrets".
I get it, you’ve got no secrets, next!
But back in the early seventies I truly had no secrets. I had plenty of stories, but nothing I wouldn’t share. I was just dying to have a woman to tell them to, the question of editing didn’t enter the picture. But today…
We have no secrets
We tell each other everything
About the lovers in the past
And why they didn’t last
I went through a transformation after my divorce. I held nothing back. But when I reconnected with my ex she didn’t agree with my newfound philosophy, she didn’t believe in hurting people, and even though we’d been separated for years I was wounded hearing the people she’d slept with since. You see she’d once been mine. Exclusively. Now…
We share a cast of characters from A to Z
We know each other’s fantasies
And though we know each other better when we explore
Sometimes I wish
Often I wish
That I never knew some of those secrets of yours
So I’m sitting at Felice’s dining room table revealing my romantic history and as I’m talking she’s becoming more and more quiet. Doesn’t the fact that I’m revealing my previous history illustrate my trustworthiness, our connection?
But every once in a while when we’re driving down the street and she points out where she lived with this person or that I wince. I want to know, but I don’t.
And later when you told me
You said she was a bore
But sometimes I wish
Ofttimes I wish
That I never never knew some of those secrets of yours
If the relationship was that good, we’d still be with them. But we’re not. And we say why. But on a certain level the other person just does not believe us, they think we’re sugarcoating the truth.
Not only do I tell the truth, I believe it’s best if the secrets come out. It’s only history. It can’t be denied.
But however much you share you can’t share it all. As much as we want to be close, on certain levels we remain distant.
But then there are those moments when we tell our stories and feel understood and accepted and we feel warm all over. That’s what we’re looking for.
In the name of honesty, in the name of what is fair
You always answer my questions
But they don’t always answer my prayers
And though I know you say that it’s me that you adore
Sometimes I wish
Often I wish
That I never, never, never knew
Some of those secrets of yours
Now I’ve got so many romantic bruises I wonder if I’m even lovable. When I first heard "No Secrets" I was optimistic, relatively unscathed. I didn’t know that the older we get the more we grow apart. But only by telling our secrets can we grow back together.
We have no secrets
Telling each other most everything now…
