Very few singers/songwriters evoke an emotion in me that draws me to tears. When I say singer/songwriters, I mean people who write their own music. I love many artists, Celine Dion for instance, she can bring me to tears, but she doesn’t write her own music. And to me, that is a giant difference between how the music moves me. Obviously certain songs can cause various emotions, but when I know an artist has written this from their heart, from a life experience, from some emotion, it makes it that much more powerful.
I will be the first to admit I have an extremely unhealthy obsession with Adele. I personally have no problem with it. And don’t really care who thinks that I do. The first step is admitting. And I have. So we can get past that.
The first time I heard Adele I was sailing away in the Caribbean with my GF at the time. Her song Chasing Pavements must have played a million times on that cruise. I remember asking one of the other passengers who was singing because I just was mesmerized by it. How many times in my life had I asked myself “should I just give up or should I just keep chasing pavements, even if it leads nowhere?” Hundreds…and I have chased a lot of pavements. So of course when I returned home from the trip I found her CD and fell in love with the whole thing. Who was this British person who could literally crawl inside my head and write down every emotion I was feeling? And then, she kind of faded into the sunset…never to be heard from again. I never saw the Saturday Night Live show that made her famous in the U.S. and really, didn’t think much more about her except when I would randomly hear Chasing Pavements on the radio. They didn’t give the other songs much air play.
Several months ago, I was watching a movie trailer being advertised on TV. For the life of me, I cannot remember the movie, but they were playing the chorus to Rolling in the Deep, a song that would eventually go on to be number 1 in 17 countries. I had no idea who sang it, but I remembered the lyrics and Googled it. Thank God for Google. And here she was again, after all these years…the same person who tripped a trigger once upon a time, was doing it again. I YouTube’d it and watched the video, which if you haven’t seen, is phenomenal. Who can sing like that sitting down?
Well after that I proceeded to look her up on ITunes and listen to 30 seconds of each of the rest of the songs on the new album. I have a little OCD. Example, if I am craving Olive Garden, I will not be okay to be around until I have had it. Knowing I was not going to be ok without this CD I immediately got in my car and drove to Target. Purchased the CD and listened to it in its entirety for the remainder of the day. Interestingly enough, my cousin Rhetta was doing the same thing except was taking a much slower approach. Like hadn’t even made it past song 4.
Anyway, shortly after purchasing this CD, I realize Target, of all places, has a special edition CD, which includes acoustic versions of some of the songs. Well, by God, I had to have it. Why didn’t Target tell me this when I was there the first time? Oh, because they only printed so many and gave only so many to only certain Targets and good luck finding one. I went to every Target around me…they were out. I called the only other person who knew about this obsession, Rhetta, and said, you have many Targets, please find one. Please, if you never do another thing for me. In true Rhetta form, she came through. And I may as well have won the lottery. I think Day 3 of listening to it; Bella asked me if I ever thought about listening to anything else. Ummm, no, no I haven’t.
I then watched the videos about how each song came to be, which of course made me love them that much more. And then, she was on Chelsea Lately, whom I adore, and I instantly fell in love with her. Like a movie star crush, only a musician crush. Everything about her…her mannerisms, her voice, her past, her laughter…she really is just a normal, hilarious, funny human being who has had their heart shattered, just like everyone else in the world. She is human. She is the kind of person you want to sit down and have a beer with, because you know she would be an awesome friend.
So once in a while, you meet a person, okay so I haven’t met her, but you run across a person, who for whatever reason, changes your life. You have no idea, but they crawl inside your heart and they stay there. I am not the only person in the world who thinks she crawled in my head and expressed my emotions through music, but no one else in the world can feel the way I do when she sings. The emotions she evokes in me are mine and mine only.
Her current CD, 21, runs the gamut of a failed relationship. Falling in love, falling out of love, people talking about it, all of it. We have all been through them. We have all had our heart broken. I personally don’t know a single soul who has been able to write about it and sing about it in a way as if you wrote it yourself.
I would give anything to see her in concert. I would give anything to meet her. I would be just one of a million people who would say, oh my gosh you changed my life…and it would mean nothing to her, because she hears it every single day…but it wouldn’t matter because I would have told her how I felt.
I am sure most of you could care less about how Adele makes me feel, or why I am so crazy about her, but if you like her yourself, I suggest that you YouTube her ITunes Live Festival 2011 and watch them all. If you don’t laugh, or cry, well, don’t bother. It will either touch your heart or it won’t.
I have included two videos that I would recommend to anyone who even remotely likes her. The first one, Someone Like You, makes me cry. I cry, because she cries, at the very end. It is hard to catch, but she does. And she has said this was one of the hardest songs she has ever written because it expresses exactly how she felt. You can feel the way she feels, just by watching her sing it.
The last song, One and Only, will be sung at my wedding. I pray I mean this much to someone someday.
Until then. “Don’t underestimate the things that I will do.”
Thank you Adele. For understanding me.
I am equally obsessed with the Kardashians!
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