“Everyone will laugh/ They’ll point fingers at you/ And be cruel/ But come a few years and they’ll listen/ Because you’ll know much better than them/ Someday.”

I don’t think we ever outgrow our former selves, as much as we might desperately try. That vision of the person we used to be will always linger in the back of our minds, pushing us on to be so much more, or holding us back with whispered insecurities. I cling onto things long after I should; years have passed since that friendship or this betrayal, and although I might have managed to put them aside – drain them of their pain or significance – they’re still there. Shadows; barely alive; but still there. Another motivation to succeed, more hollow than the rest, because I will never see acceptance or praise from those people in my lifetime – no matter how much I want them to validate the person I’ve struggled to become.

I love Rosie unconditionally as an artist because I find her songs always make me believe in a different world, just for a little while. The world where cruelty is punished, strength rewarded, and everything really will be alright in the end. The lilt of soft melody; the elegant sweep of strings. Her voice soothes me with promises of justice and precious emotion, an almost maternal voice of reason wiping tears away and lulling hopeful children to sleep each night.

This song is fuller than most – a more confident vision that backs her fragile voice with rich composition – but still, it spins that myth and cocoons me in a warm shield of rightness. Because these are the Great Lies that kept me going, back in the weeping, mournful years of my childhood. And if I hadn’t at least believed that they was true, that “Nice little girls grow up to be homecoming queens”, then I don’t know if I would be sitting at this old wooden desk now: manuscript pages at my left, view of the deer park to my right, and an untouched stack of metaethics reading tucked away in the corner while I focus on more important things.

These things may be untrue, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a reason for believing them.

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Bonus - ”2 Dollar Shoes’ to match that dress.
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