I Want You To Love Me

This started as a love song to somebody I hadn’t met yet. Then I got back together with Jonathan [Ames] in 2015, and it became about him for a while. Then we broke up about a year later, so it wasn’t about him anymore. Which is how these things go. The songs change who they’re about a lot. It came out of the time I’d spent doing a lot of meditation, thinking about the nature of things. That whole thing of, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one’s around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Yes, it does. Because a vibration happens. Whether or not you’re there to hear it. I exist whether or not you see me. These things about me are true whether or not you acknowledge them. That’s at least the second verse. “But I know a sound is still a sound / around no one.” The line about the pulse “And I know when I go all my particles disband and disperse / and I’ll be back in the pulse.” — that was the experience I’d had this one day after six days straight of meditating at Spirit Rock in Woodacre, California, in a group of about 75 women in 2010. I had this throbbing in my head. Then I remembered this advice someone had given me, which was to just surrender — allow yourself to fall through water, stop trying to do anything. And for some reason, I was able to do that, and the throbbing in my head left. But then everybody was throbbing — everything. I’d never had an experience like that, and it’s hard for me to remember what it felt like now, but it’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me in my life. I knew then what life and death was. It’s this pulse. And we all share it, and it sounds so cheesy. But it wasn’t in my head; it was out of it. It was among us all. It was something we were all in together. It was like this place of home, this pulse we would all be in. I felt like I had found it and everything felt so beautiful. I felt like if I opened my eyes, maybe it would disappear. But I opened my eyes and it was still happening. I left the meditation hall, and it was still happening. I walked down the hill, and there were these horses that never paid attention to me. But I felt there was this understanding between us. I felt all of this. And after a while it went away. But I remember that that was there. It changed everything for me. Just knowing, “Okay, no matter what happens, that’s where home is. That’s what the reality is. I know it’s there.”

[Verse 1] I've waited many years Every print I left upon the track Has led me here And next year, it'll be clear This was only leading me to that And by that time, I hope that [Chorus] You love me You love me [Verse 2] I move with the trees in the breeze I know that time is elastic And I know when I go All my particles disband and disperse And I'll be back in the pulse And I know none of this will matter in the long run But I know a sound is still a sound around no one And while I'm in this body I want somebody to want And I want what I want and I want [Chorus] You to love me You [Bridge] And I know that you do In the dark, I know that you do And I know that you know that you got The potential to pick me up And I want you to use it, blast the music Bang it, bite it, bruise it Whenever you want to begin, begin We don't have to go back to where we've been I am the woman who wants you to win And I've been waiting, waiting for [Outro] You to love me You You Ooh, ooh