Song Rec: "Back From the Edge" by James Taylor
You know how sometimes you hear a song play and you're immediately arrested and just like, "Excuse me, but I need to go weep about Sam Winchester by myself for a moment"?
That's what this song is like for me:
I'm mostly thinking S4 and S8 Sam with a little bit of pre-series/S2, S3, and S11 mixed in. The connections I was making are almost painfully literal, but I think that's only bound to happen when what happens in the show is literally demons, literally Hell, literally demon blood, etc., haha. That second stanza feels really Sam and Dean to me--all the worst parts of their relationship, especially in terms of the way Sam felt during a lot of S4 and S8. And because the thing that alerted me to this song as a Sam song as it was playing was making the connection to demon blood, I feel like applying the back-from-Hell verses would make sense on its face, but I think I'd really prefer to keep them with Sam. There's the literal realm of Hell, and then there's the hell Sam found that summer.
What really makes this as a Sam song for me, though, is the chorus, which names the speaker as "the boy who would reach for the stars." Maybe those stars were a stable home, or Stanford, or Jess; fireworks on the Fourth of July; stars as seen from the hood of the Impala; or maybe the stars were angels, falling. But these stars have always been this idea that the world is worth saving, life is worth living, happiness is worth chasing, and goodness is worth being, no matter how perilously difficult it is in practice or how profoundly stupid you feel for believing in that, or how at odds your own existence seems to be with such a reality.
Saaaaaaaaam. <3333333333333333333333333333
You can take my home, you can take my clothes
You can take the drugs I have that nobody knows
You can take my watch, you can take my phone
You can take all I've got 'til I'm skin and bone
They don't like my lines, they don't like my songs
Except in karaoke when they're singing along
Did you see them build me up? Watch me tear myself down
With a smile on my face, I dug my grave in the ground
We all make mistakes, we're so quick to judge
It's hard to forgive when we hold onto a grudge
I don't want control, I can dig my own hole
I can make my bed and I can lie in it cold
'Cause I don't need heat, I've been burnin' in hell
But now I'm back with my own story to tell
Back from the edge
Back from the dead
Back before demons took control of my head
Back to the start
Back to my heart
Back to the boy who would reach for the stars
That's what this song is like for me:
Click to viewI'm mostly thinking S4 and S8 Sam with a little bit of pre-series/S2, S3, and S11 mixed in. The connections I was making are almost painfully literal, but I think that's only bound to happen when what happens in the show is literally demons, literally Hell, literally demon blood, etc., haha. That second stanza feels really Sam and Dean to me--all the worst parts of their relationship, especially in terms of the way Sam felt during a lot of S4 and S8. And because the thing that alerted me to this song as a Sam song as it was playing was making the connection to demon blood, I feel like applying the back-from-Hell verses would make sense on its face, but I think I'd really prefer to keep them with Sam. There's the literal realm of Hell, and then there's the hell Sam found that summer.
What really makes this as a Sam song for me, though, is the chorus, which names the speaker as "the boy who would reach for the stars." Maybe those stars were a stable home, or Stanford, or Jess; fireworks on the Fourth of July; stars as seen from the hood of the Impala; or maybe the stars were angels, falling. But these stars have always been this idea that the world is worth saving, life is worth living, happiness is worth chasing, and goodness is worth being, no matter how perilously difficult it is in practice or how profoundly stupid you feel for believing in that, or how at odds your own existence seems to be with such a reality.
Saaaaaaaaam. <3333333333333333333333333333
You can take my home, you can take my clothes
You can take the drugs I have that nobody knows
You can take my watch, you can take my phone
You can take all I've got 'til I'm skin and bone
They don't like my lines, they don't like my songs
Except in karaoke when they're singing along
Did you see them build me up? Watch me tear myself down
With a smile on my face, I dug my grave in the ground
We all make mistakes, we're so quick to judge
It's hard to forgive when we hold onto a grudge
I don't want control, I can dig my own hole
I can make my bed and I can lie in it cold
'Cause I don't need heat, I've been burnin' in hell
But now I'm back with my own story to tell
Back from the edge
Back from the dead
Back before demons took control of my head
Back to the start
Back to my heart
Back to the boy who would reach for the stars