This feels like a fitting song to kick off February – the shortest month of the year, and the last full month of winter – as we play games dodging time in the season of slumber. Supposedly it was inspired by a party that Madonna and Guy Oseary threw, attended by Lana Del Rey. Friends have been telling me for years that I would/should love Lana due to her dramatic way around a melody, and I’m finally coming around to it. This one is especially gorgeous.
We keep changing all the timeThe best ones lost their mindsSo I’m not gonna changeI’ll stay the sameNo rose left on the vinesDon’t even want what’s mineMuch less the fameIt’s dark but just a gameIt’s dark but just a game…
In the thick of winter, this is the time when some of us lose our minds. I remember visiting JoAnn in Cape Cod a number of years ago, and her brother Wally regaled what they did to make it through the winter – and for all of the trickery and mind-games that we could conjure and use to make it through the doldrums, the bottom line was that it sucked. Sometimes the only way through was to get a few friends, get a little drunk, and do a few doughnuts in an empty parking lot as a winter storm barreled down on the base of that summer-getaway peninsula.
Those days are blessedly behind us, and I have found better ways to embrace the winter, choosing to engage rather than defy. It is always folly to defy winter.
It’s dark but just a gameSo play it like a symphonyYou know our love’s the sameThey’ll both go down in infamy…
