"Beautiful Disaster"

Every now and then I hear a song that rocks my world in unexpected ways. I'll never forget hearing Rupert Holmes' "Moonfall" for the first time. Transporting. Shortly into the second half of A Class Act Randy Graff sang Edward Kleban's "The Next Best Thing to Love" and the world stopped spinning for a few minutes.

When Greta, one of my delicious kids at WECC, told me she would be singing a Kelly Clarkson ballad for Friday's talent show, I was nonplussed. I don't really know Kelly Clarkson beyond her ubiquitous first hit "A Moment Like This". I thought she was a pretty, unremarkable Mariah knockoff. So I was unprepared for the mondo response I've had to the song Greta brought me. "Beautiful Disaster", by Rebekah Jordan and Matthew Wilder, is a gorgeous piece of writing about a love that is undeniable, completely unmanagable, and probably impossible. I don't know why the this-love-is-doomed canon of American pop music appeals to me so, but it always has. And Jordan and Wilder have written the kind of lyric to which I automatically connect. Just look at the opening lines:

"HE DROWNS IN HIS DREAMS.
AN EXQUISITE EXTREME, I KNOW".

Later in the bridge they write:

"I'M LONGING FOR LOVE AND THE LOGICAL,
BUT HE'S ONLY HAPPY HYSTERICAL".

Near the end:

"HE'S SOFT TO THE TOUCH,
BUT FRAYED AT THE ENDS.
HE'LL BREAK.
HE'S NEVER ENOUGH,
AND STILL HE'S MORE THAN I CAN TAKE".

People who love me have been begging me for a long time to make some changes. Truly, I think I am. Things are better. I am better. The song just brought some clarity to me, that's all. Everyone should get to love someone they find beautiful. No one should have to cope with a disaster. It's a painful relief to start to understand.

Greta is 12 or so and much too young for me to explain to her that the song she taught me means something very personal. But I'll find a way to thank her. From the mouths of babes!