Let me tell you something… We’re all in trouble.
You, me, the girl reading this over your shoulder, the people who run the banks, and the people who sleep under bridges. Trouble is the baseline. The floor we walk on, the foundation of day to day. The air we choke down with a third cup of coffee.
Babatunde Adebimpe knows trouble. The dude crushes me with his lyrics all the time. This song is over ten years old, and it came on yesterday and hit me all over again.
Oh, here comes trouble
Put your helmet on, we’ll be headed for a fall
Yeah, the whole thing’s gonna blow
And the devil’s got my number
It’s long overdue, he’ll come looking soon
Yeah, the whole thing’s gonna blow
But then the chorus comes in, borderline majestic; anthemic even:
Everything’s gonna be okay (I’ll be okay)
Oh, I keep telling myself
“Don’t worry, be happy”
Oh, you keep telling yourself
Now, is that true? Hell no. But is it worth saying?
You bet your life it is. Because it feels so damned heavy. It’s not sang hopefully. It’s put out there almost lamenting, almost questioning. Walking wounded style, about to break at the seams and desperately trying to reassure itself (myself) with every resonant repeat.
Maybe I don’t need saving, just a moment to catch my breath. No screaming guitars, no pyrotechnics. Just a pulsing heartbeat, a flickering light, a warm voice that doesn’t sell you hope so much as lend it to you gingerly. Like, you take this and hold it for a sec. Because the weight is all too much for me alone.
The song doesn’t try to fix you. It just sits next to you and hums along. It doesn’t even really build all that much, just keeps at it with the perfect beauty that it already established.
And that, my friends, is the best kind of prayer, as music tends toward divinity in my godless world.
So play it when the sky looks weird, or when the darkness has turned against you, again, or when you’re thinking about calling your mother but don’t. Play it and nod along. You’re still here. You’re doing fine.
Even if you’re not.