“Nothing Lasts”
by Matthew Sweet
from the album Girlfriend
1991
Buy the album on Amazon

When Lance wrote up this album last week, it was pretty spot on. I completely agree with him that it’s one of the rare albums with nary a skippable song. I associate this album most strongly with my high school friend Joel Robinson (not of MST3K fame), as we had a shared love of it from the time it first came out. It is indeed a perfect album. I don’t want to rehash what Lance went into, but just to expand on a couple of points (and I’m going to ramble here entirely too long to just add it as an article comment)…

1. The only song slight I have to protest is “Winona”. While each song on the album is great, I remember some more than others, and this one has always been one of my favorites. Sure, partly because as required by me generation, I had a crush on Winona Ryder (and Lance didn’t, and that’s making me question a lot of things), but beyond that it’s just a simple, beautiful song. Maybe I connected it to my many (many) unrequited crushes and feelings of loneliness:

I tried to call you
But the line was busy
Were you talking to a friend?
When I tried again much later
I didn’t want to let it ring again

So you can see I’ve got a problem
Back by popular demand
Sometimes I want to
Keep it from you
Sometimes I think
You’ll understand

Could you be my
Little movie star?
Could you be my long lost girl?
It’s true that
I don’t really know you
But I’m alone in the world

When I think maybe I need you
I don’t care if if it’s not true
‘Cause it isn’t so much
What I need now
As what I want from you

Ugh. Yes.

2. The concert that Lance referred to, wherein Matthew Sweet performed Girlfriend in its entirety, is in my top 5 concert experiences. For one thing, it didn’t bother me at all to have it just the the album, probably because I hadn’t listened to the album straight through in so long that many of the songs were actually little surprises (compared to The Pixies Doolittle tour, which I didn’t like as much because I always knew what was coming next). Bigger than that was just the shared moment. The concert was in a little restaurant bar, so we were seated at a table. Lance and I were singing our hearts out to every damn song like a couple of damn fools, big grins on our faces, his about-to-be-wife looking at us like “what have I got myself into?” and also “I’m so glad I am marrying Lance before these two get married.” Just a great, amazing experience all around.

Now then, finally on to some music.

Lance glossed over a few of the later songs on the album, because they didn’t mean as much to him (or because he was getting tired of writing – fair enough). I can’t say the same about the final track on the album. You know those songs that are bad for you to listen to on repeat when you’re going through something, because they just keep you in that dark place, but they’re also so damn good for you because it’s still music and music always makes everything better or at least helps because it’s so freaking powerful? This is one of those songs for me. I had a bit of a nuclear fallout with my friend circle between my junior and senior year of high school, and this song was one of the things that got me through. The new theater director at our school also started an open mic-type night at the theater every weekend (or maybe once a month – can’t remember), and I had this constant vision of asking that same friend Joel, mentioned earlier, or his brother (who was a better player) to learn the guitar on this song and accompany me in a performance there, making one slight tweak to the lyrics, hoping that my old friends would be there. I never got the balls to do it,  but the song still holds some major power over me, and I can’t always stick with it when it comes on shuffle.

Nothing’s in your way
Now you can stand right up and run
Wouldn’t even change things
If I took back what I’ve done
I have tried to hang on to the past
But I couldn’t keep my grasp,
‘Cause nothing lasts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoVpAoSS8so