BY Idongesit Imuk
(A young nigerian woman dissects a relative compare, on the dangers of loving difficult men)
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“EASY ON ME” by Britain’s most famously reclusive singer, Adele….
This song hit us all October last year.
After an almost five year hiatus, the daughter of Adkins___a rather obscure blond welsh man, whose famous daughter, christianed with the middle name, “Blue”___Adele Blue Adkins; her mononymous first name, almost having become synonym with the word, “heartbreak”, came out with another one of those her lacrimal-emptying ballads…and the very first, “easy on me” had sent shivers down our spines.
Now any woman who’s been a “victim” of difficult relationships, won’t find it difficult identifying with this song, “easy on me.”
We all know Adele’s boyfriend history and that it hasn’t really been all rosy for the “someone Iike you” crooner, it’s the only thing she’s sung of, her entire life.
When my sister first told me Adele had released a new single, I remember rushing over to the net to scout for download sites.
I found it on one of those backyard sites that dub straight from the celluloid disc.
The quality was apt, clean! Clear, for a low MB download.
But I remember shedding silent tears before she’d even crooned into the second solo.
The lines bore pain, even the way she sings it, the intensity with which she allows the words escape her lips, the seriousness of the crescendoes, decrescendoes and diminuendos, you could tell this woman had been in pain for long.
Early in 2019, we heard she’d split from her husband, what’s that his name again?
Simon Konecki, you know one of those chubby english men, who look like they’ll look really good should they consider the option of letting out the excess bags of abdominal adipocytes.
It obviously hit her hard, being that he was the guy she’d been in love with for the most part of her late twenties, into the early thirties that she is in at the moment.
Way into the song, she closes her eyes, minces them close rather…
Her face assuming a far more serious poise, and throwing back her head in a quick, unpredictable move, she screams… “go easy on me, I was still a child…”
And in that moment, her well manicured fingers go up in the air in an eerie motion, as if she were a 19th century french sorceress, who faced with being burnt at stake, tries to cast some form of spell on her soon-to-be murderers.
Pain, stress, strain and un-recompensed expended emotions.
The general picture of this song, portrays a woman in pain, a woman who in her lifetime, has descended to the abyss of pain: the lowest possible place inexplicable hurt could take you to, then abandon you to face those haunting demons, all alone.
The energy, vibe and depth of expression, which she throws into this song, the weight of emotions in her voice, as she waddles her way through the deep commanding lines, can only tell us one thing: she’s had a pretty rough time with love.
The highlight of the song, the climax of those soul searing lyrics come where she tearfully chants, “you can’t deny how hard I’ve tried. I changed who I was to put you first…”
I remember cracking at that point, that last year October, throwing myself on the king sized bed in the room I share with my kid sister and allowing the tears flow.
Cos I mean, who else but myself, familiar alter egos and every other woman who’s ever fallen for a difficult man, understands just how draining it is, to get yourself fit into the expectations of a man, a man you love but who doesn’t want to love you back, with the same intensity with which you love him?
“Easy on me” was followed up by an array of similar, cousin-like songs.
All of them with the undertone of a woman who’s tried her best to keep a man with her.
The song itself to me, sounds like the depressed reflections of a woman who after failing at all methods and ways to keep things going well with this guy, develops a stress-triggered mental state where she begins to beg the guy to “go easy on me, I was still a child”___she develops a guilt complex over a situation she has no total control over.
Tell me about turning round to blame myself for once walking away from a relationship I knew too well was being held together by the fragile strings, cords and teethers of family ties, courtesy-demands and something that felt like “I-don’t-want-to-be-embarrassed.”
Grief can make things out of you, hideous things! With grief, anything is possible!
So I understand why this woman, who seems to be an amazing person in every possible way, released a sad ballad of her apologizing to a man whose innocence in the whole show we’re oblivious of.
That particular month was crucial for me, the 10th of the 12 months the gregorian calendar allots us… in the past 365 days, before the cycle we’re currently in, set in.
It was because it was the moment I choosed to stop playing second fiddle, stop being the begging-beggy-desperate girl, who cared deeply for, but was not cared for in return.
It was the moment I transitioned from a place of loneliness or to put it straight, psuedo-companionship, to something real, a bit more tangible and free.
And even though it was a “rebound”
A part of me still thinks those feelings for the guy I’d moved on to, weren’t real…
They were tainted and stained with minute patches and shades of transferred anger.
But isn’t that what rebounds are all about? Rebound relationships are escape portals, nature’s way to cope with grief, the grief that comes as malaise for unseen, untouched but deeply felt shattered hearts.
So I’d say Adele’s “EASY ON ME” was a sort of solo-rebound relationship
But the helpless a-romantics: the opposite of what most of us, cupid-ians are, would argue that it’s just a sad song sang by a heart broken lady.
But I know what I’m saying… having spent time tending to myself, tending to wounds and ulcers left on me by men I loved in the “ICU” all of us love smitten ones are sent to…
Miss Adkins wasn’t singing out of grief, or anger at her love interest who’d not been patient enough to understand, evidenced by the line: “I had no time to do choose what I choosed to do.”
Me thinks and says, this woman sang this song out of “GUILT”
She feels guilty for not being smart enough to do what she should have done, to prevent it from crashing all out, the way it did. And that my friend…is a feeling familiar to most women.
She’d long moved on and in, with american sports’ agent and CEO of Klutch sports’ group, Rich Paul. A black american, who she discloses to Emma Carmichael, in her interview for ELLE magazine, as her present obssession.
So the next time you listen to “easy on me”, whether intentionally, or it’s been played by a lonely neighbour, or the DJ of a radio station decides he wants to send his listeners sprawling in the pool of their own tears.
Or you catch a whiff of it in distant air while caught up in the rush hour traffic (for those us who live in cities where traffic mayors the day all through)…the next time you hear this english woman croon these lines, think of every woman who’s ever fallen in love, who’s ever tried to make it work with a man, as a helpless vunerable species.
