When You Look Through Me

Not sure, really, why the lyrics of this 1994 tune came to me.

I wasn't in a relationship at the time and I wasn't thinking of any specific relationship from the past. Still, the situation talked to me. In a sullen, passive-aggressive way, of course.

Though it comes off here as a kind of mutant bossa, I initially conceived of the music as a European tango. I'm not a big fan of European tango, with its cliche rhythm and the cartoonish dance styles associated with it, but I thought that very baggage suited the style to the lyrics.

(I go on at length, because I am a big fan of the modern Argentine tango of Astor Piazzolla. I saw him in performance in 1987 at UCLA, and it was an amazingly deep musical evening. No cliches in Piazzola's tango.)


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When You Look Through Me

You ask me where I've been
I wonder what it matters
I wonder why you should care at all
I wonder what you see
when you look thru me
I feel like a ghost in my own home

Oh but weren't the old days grand
our lives together like love letters in the sand
raise a glass to the past
but don't look through
to a time when you loved me and I loved you

I go out walking
you stay home talking
those people on the phone know more about me than I do
I hear your laughter
I don't hear what you say after
but I hear that I'm a joke in my home town


Oh but weren't the old days grand
our lives together like love letters in the sand
raise a glass to the past
but don't look through
to a time when you loved me and I loved you