“If you give your trust to a person who does not deserve it, you actually give him the power to destroy you.”
- Khaled Saad
Do you trust your spouse? Is trust a given? How quickly and easily can it be lost? Can you ever really truly get it back once it’s gone?
These are good questions…and tough ones to answer. Why? Because even though anybody with any life experience could answer them in a heartbeat, these are questions that can only be tackled through political correctness, at least the first and the last question, especially the first question.
My father used to say: “Once somebody shows you their true colors, don’t try to repaint them, run.” Guess if I ever really took him up on that advice. I always had to learn everything the hard way. In addition, it’s always been difficult for me to admit defeat and move on – a personal weakness that hasn’t necessarily made my life happier. I regret each time I stayed in a toxic relationship longer than I should have.
Our track of the week, Julian Lennon’s “I Don’t Wanna Know,” deals with the mindset we develop after we don’t trust the person we are with anymore. Our defense mechanisms kick in and we pull away, convincing ourselves that we don’t care and don’t even want to know, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. Lennon nails the mantra we keep repeating over and over in our heads.
I don't wanna know what's going on
And I don't wanna know what's right or wrong
And I don't wanna know who's bed you're in
And I don't wanna know just where you've been
Another couplet that I think is brilliant is “Oh baby, you said you're changing for the better now/Just maybe, you're not as strong as you thought somehow.” Really, I don’t think the largest difficulty of getting over an extramarital affair lies in the fact that it cannot be forgiven. Rather, as Lennon points out, it lies in the fact that usually people cannot break things off with their lovers and keep returning to them. I don’t endorse that but I do understand the difficulty. After all, if we weren’t talking about a very strong urge, these things wouldn’t happen in the first place.
Musically “I Don’t Wanna Know” finds Julian Lennon making a conscious effort to both write and sound like the Beatles. Says Julian:
This is probably the song that a lot of Beatles fans have been waiting for me to do. People are always asking when am I going to do something more towards the Beatles style. And so I thought, why not? In a sense it's a homage, but the sentiment and lyrics are serious. It actually came about from walking around in France and there was a shop with an English newspaper. I thought, 'Oh get the paper, catch up on the rest of the world,' and then I thought, 'I don't wanna know.' It turned into a relationship song.
“I Don’t Wanna Know” truly succeeds in this. It’s a track that sounds like it could have been one of the John Lennon-penned tunes on Rubber Soul. It’s an acoustically driven, punchy folk-rock song filled with cool guitar licks and very nice bass fills. However, the true miracle here is the lead vocal and not only because it’s fantastic but because it bears such an uncanny resemblance to the vocal sound of the elder Lennon that if John had still been alive in 1999 when this track was recorded, you couldn’t be sure which Lennon is singing, the father or the son. All in all, "I Don't Wanna Know" is a track that is easily in my top twenty tracks ever. And yes, the jangly opening chord is fantastic!
In an attempt to bring something new to the table concerning distrust in relationships, I want to share with you an epiphany I had a few months ago. Trust is not lost simply if the other person cheats or lies and gets caught. It can be lost with a hell of a lot less. Sometimes all you need is the other person behaving strangely or not following through with their promises. If you say you will come home before midnight from your Christmas party, deliver on that promise. If you are in public together, don’t have wondering eyes. If they need you, be there for them. If they want to talk, talk. The dilemma here is that if somebody cannot keep a simple promise or demonstrate what is basic appropriate behavior, how will they ever be able to keep their word when it comes to stuff that really matters.
However, even this isn’t enough sometimes. Sometimes, it all boils down to not getting the reactions you are either used to or expecting in everyday life. If you are deprived of empathy or compassion when you most need them or if the other person is not excited when you tell them exciting news or changes the topic without a warning when you ask them a question they don’t want to tackle, your initial disappointment will soon evolve into distrust by the time you start wondering why they are reacting the way they are. Doesn’t he love me? Doesn’t she care about how I feel? Am I important to this person at all?
Oh, and about that last question from the beginning of this post, the one about whether trust can be rebuild once it has been lost? Well, the real answer is: no. You see trust doesn’t come with a refill. Once it’s gone, you probably won’t get it back. And even if you do, it will never be quite the same again. It’ll be like a half-drunk glass of Coke topped off with Fanta. It’s good but doesn’t quite taste exactly the way it should anymore. And that’s just a fact. Sorry…and yes, you guessed it right, I’ve had my share of weird soda combinations, some better than others but none of them really even worth the cup they were mixed in.
You can learn more about Julian Lennon here:
About the curator - Tommi Tikka
Tom Tikka is a linguist, poet, professional songwriter, recording artist and a music aficionado. He started playing guitar when he was four and writing songs when he was six. Consequently, he doesn't remember a time when he wasn't playing or writing. It's fair to say, music and lyrics are not just something he loves to engage himself in; to him, they are a way of life.
