It feels like superman died!

It has been almost a week now. I still get sad at random moments during the day.

After seeing the deaths of many young or middle-aged people when I was a kid, I remember telling myself that I won’t get upset if a person lived a life full of bitter/sweet memories and died at a reasonably old age (like at least 70) because she/he lived a good life, there are people dying at much younger ages, and we are all going to die anyways.

But I am still upset even though he was 71. Because I feel like superman died. He was a very nontraditional superman but he was my superman. I thought maybe I can feel better if I write as I always do.

Even though I had heard his name before, what really introduced me to Lou Reed was reading Trainspotting in high school. Trainspotting gave me a good list of musicians to be discovered; Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, etc., and shaped some branches of my music taste. From that list, Lou Reed was the one who left the biggest impression on me, because he not only became one of my favorite musicians, but also one of my favorite poets and storytellers. His love for literature was all over his work and he offered me a goldmine for underground literature in addition to his music and poetry.

He was one of the most important figures in my life who made me love and respect people as they are, especially the ones marginalized by the society, because he often wrote about drug addicts, transvestites, prostitutes, etc. But more importantly, many times he made me accept who I am whenever I felt like an outcast and hated myself for it.

He was one of the main reasons that during my bachelor’s my first academic paper’s topic was prostitutes or I visited a penitentiary regularly to voluntarily work with female prisoners.

He was sometimes a substitute for my mom and dad at nights I had hard time to go to sleep. When I was lying in bed alone in my 19m² studio in Lausanne last September with a high fever on a Saturday night, his voice put me to sleep making me dream about a beautiful Sunday Morning.

To a girl like me who gets extremely bored while listening to famous love songs like Unchained Melody or I Will Always Love You, he gave her favorite love song, I’m Sticking With You.

He gave me some of my favorite movie scenes; like when Perfect Day plays in Trainspotting or when Venus in Furs plays in Last Days.

I often felt drunk or high by just listening to some of his songs.

He was always there to say everything is going to be alright in various ways when I was broken.

And he will always be there with his songs whenever and wherever I need him. But it still feels like superman died.

"When you're going to love you as much as I do"

This sentence is from the song "Winter" which is written by Tori Amos. Whenever, I listen to this song, it reminds me of my parents because various things that can indicate the meaning in this sentence are said to me by my parents.

I've never loved myself as much as my parents love me. There were times, especially in my high school years, that I questioned this situation a lot. How could they love me this much? I didn't do anything to deserve this love. I always felt bad about this whenever I saw how hard my mom tried to stop my tears, or my dad hurting even more than I do whenever I had a stupid clumsy accident.

But then I understood when I started university. That was the first time I left my parents for that long and I realized what they really are to me. They aren't just my parents, but they are also my best friends, my best teachers, and my companions. Seeing my mom crying destroys my heart and I just want to hug her and cry with her. When I see my dad locking himself in his own world because he is really sad, I try any stupid thing that can get him out of that world and cheer him up. Whenever they have a fight and get separated to different rooms of the same house, I rapidly go back and forth between them, like a tennis ball, to make them forget what just happened. When I can't hear from them for a while I get worried, as they get worried when they can't hear from me.

Now they are also my kids and I also have to be their parents now as much as they have to be my parents, although I am not as good as them yet in being a parent.
Considering someone as your kid makes you realize how meaningless the rest of the world compared to him/her. That's how I understood how can my parents love and value me even more than I do.

We are the three musketeers no matter where we are. :)




For the interested the full lyrics of "Winter" is as follows. (And I love you dear Tori Amos)
I think Tori Amos wrote it for her dad.


Snow can wait
I forgot my mittens
Wipe my nose
Get my new boots on
I get a little warm in my heart
When I think of winter
I put my hand in my father's glove
I run off
Where the drifts get deeper
Sleeping beauty trips me with a frown
I hear a voice
"Your must learn to stand up for yourself
Cause I can't always be around"
He says
When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change my dear

Boys get discovered as winter melts
Flowers competing for the sun
Years go by and I'm here still waiting
Withering where some snowman was
Mirror mirror where's the crystal palace
But I only can see myself
Skating around the truth who I am
But I know dad the ice is getting thin

When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change my dear

Hair is gray
And the fires are burning
So many dreams
On the shelf
You say I wanted you to be proud of me
I always wanted that myself

He says
When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses have gone ahead
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change
My dear

Velvet Underground - I'm Sticking With You

I'm sticking with you
'Cos I'm made out of glue
Anything that you might do
I'm gonna do too

You held up a stage coach in the rain
And I'm doing the same
Saw you're hanging from a tree
And I made believe it was me

I'm sticking with you
'Cos I'm made out of glue
Anything that you might do
I'm gonna do too

People going to the stratosphere
Soldiers fighting with the cong?

But with you by my side I can do anything
When we swing
We hang past right or wrong

I'll do anything for you
Anything you want me too
I'll do anything for you
Oohoh I'm sticking with you
Oohoh I'm sticking with you
Oohoh I'm sticking with you


This song starts as a very childish love song. Some people might think it is a very stupid and immature love song. However, I think it is one of the most meaningful love songs ever. If you listen carefully you realize that the lyrics and the voice of the singer gets more and more mature as the song goes by. This makes me interpret this songs in two ways, either this song tells about a love story of a couple who started their relationship when they were little kids or this song tells about a love story which started as a simple fun relationship and then grew to be a very strong bond between two people.

In the first interpretation, we have a couple whose love started when they were kids. Now they are both grown ups and their relationship still continues. Therefore, the song might be telling us a long love story of two people who grew up together and their love also grew with them.

In the second interpretation, we have a love story that started as a childish love. As two people stayed together and shared more and more things together their love grew. At the beginning of the relationship the couple didn't think things seriously, they were together just to have fun in their simple relationship. However, as they spend more and more time together, their relationship became more sophisticated. They learned how to really love each other, how to sacrifice things for each other and how to stick together.

I think, both interpretations are very meaningful and they can also be combined. This song shows that, sometimes you don't need to write and perform very complicated songs to express love. This song is short and simple but tells a lot about love.