Mid-Week Music: Tindersticks - “Talk to Me”
“Talk to Me” is a song that has haunted me since I first heard it. The version on vinyl is a bit longer, and unfortunately I couldn’t find that for you to hear. It starts with a longer intro, with a quiet, descending riff of minor chords on the organ before Stuart Staples calmly begs you to “talk to me darling, before you throw it away.”
I’m fairly certain that this is another album that my friend Patrick pressed into my arms, insisting that I take it home. I would listen to it on the floor of my apartment on Neil Avenue when I lived in Columbus, Ohio, speakers dragged off the shelf on each side of my head, a glass of red wine beside me, getting up off the oriental rug only to flip each record to the next side.
“Talk to Me” is ostensibly about a relationship between two people (maybe a third was involved?) and the ugly moments when the truth forces an inflection point. Near the end of the song, the strings strain, the horns go off the chart, everything breaks apart. It’s violent and rushing and sounds like the thrash of emotional pain.
The particular words that haunt me correspond with this build up of sound:
I know it's scary darling
It comes back from the dead
Climbs on out of the ground
Back into our bed
Years later, I would regularly crawl into our bed, drunk, and wake up the next morning in my usual fog. Stuart’s voice would flash into my head, “climbs on out of the ground, back into our bed.” It wasn’t me, it was this monster climbing out of the ground, my alcohol use, this abuse of myself, this destructive cloud. Every fucking night. This monster was a wedge in our relationship, except I knew the full extent of what I was doing to feed it and my partner didn’t.
I still think this album (technically titled Tindersticks, but most call it Tindersticks II because their previous album had the same name) is a masterpiece. If you listen to the entire album, you can imagine yourself at The Supper Club, a swank venue in Manhattan with velvet-draped walls, luxurious semicircle banquettes, a dance floor, and a proscenium stage. My partner and I saw Tindersticks there some time in the 90s. The band wore suits. It was a wonderful show, and I like to revisit that memory sometimes when I listen to them.
The words still bore into my soul, but I embrace that feeling because my internalization of music is sometimes the easiest, maybe realest, way for me to experience emotion. I don’t want to forget my drunk life, but I never want to be there again.
I love you,
David
