Some nights, it’s all we can do to make it through the daily grind and finally reach the cozy refuge of bed, passing out as head meets longed-for pillow.  The demands of work/school/unemployment/parenting/tolerating the current politicians in power exact a toll that sleep is usually great for repairing.

But some nights, the darkness is an enemy, the bed a prison.  You curl up on the couch, flip the channels, pay no attention to the screen.  You surf random sites, eat the tub of Ben and Jerry’s, or flip through old photos.  On worse nights, you sit paralyzed by past’s collision with present, no future for you, flooded by memories you long wish someone would rip from your brain.

Bipolar life is an endless pendulum:  high, low, high.  It’s a roller coaster that never comes to a full and complete stop, and quickly loses any joy on the surges of endless energy.  Energy and unbridled creativity become irritability and a pursuit of sleep.  Take a pill, drink tea – it doesn’t work.  Not when the mind is so full and alive.  The hive.  It drones on, prattling off your daily events and lyrics on a good night.  On darker nights, it isn’t kind, but rewinds every scar, every loss in crisp high definition and 5.1 surround sound.  It seethes and invades, claiming slumber like lands to annex.

Nights spent in sorrow, in dread.  Nights of hands and screams.  Nights of tears and wringing hands.  But there is music.  Music remains constant, loyal.  Somewhere out there, someone can articulate the raw nerves and sharp contrasts of colour that have you clawing out your eyes in agony.

Turn the radio up.  Some nights, it’s all we can do to stay alive, until daylight rescues us from the shadows that are never sated, never satisfied with the amends we make.

High Fidelity 25:  Some Nights…

As usual, YT provided when possible.  Spotify, let Canada in kthxbi.

1.  Some Nights -Fun.
“Some nights, I stay up cashing in my bad luck
Some nights, I call it a draw
Some nights, I wish that my lips could build a castle
Some nights, I wish they’d just fall off

But I still wake up, I still see your ghost
Oh Lord, I’m still not sure what I stand for oh
What do I stand for? What do I stand for?
Most nights, I don’t know anymore…”

2.  Black Balloon – The Kills
“I’ve stood in a thousand street scenes
just around the corner from you
On the edge of a dream that you have
Has anybody ever told you, it’s not coming true ?

Farewell my black balloon…”

3.  Meds – Placebo ft VV
“I was alone, staring over the ledge,
Trying my best not to forget,
all manner of joy, all manner of glee,
and our one heroic pledge.

How it mattered to us, how it mattered to me,
and the consequences.
I was confused, by the birds and the bees,
forgetting if i meant it.

Baby..did you forget to take your meds?“

4.  Medication (acoustic) – Garbage
“I wear myself out in the morning
You’re asleep when I get home
Please don’t call me self defending
You know it cuts me to the bone
And it’s really not surprising
I hold a force I can’t contain…”

5.  Boulevard of Broken Dreams – Green Day
“I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don’t know where it goes
But it’s home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
When the city sleeps
And I’m the only one and I walk alone…”

6.  Basement Apt. – Sarah Harmer
“And every evening you open the door
You come down
There’s nothing like watching TV all night underground
and no one is watching me slide
below street level
barely alive…”

7.  Goodnight Moon – Shivaree
“There’s a blade by the bed
And a phone in my hand
A dog on the floor
And some cash on the nightstand
When I’m all alone the dreaming stops
And I just can’t stand…”

8.  Someone Saved My Life Tonight – Elton John
“I never realized the passing hours of evening showers
A slip noose hanging in my darkest dreams
I’m strangled by your haunted social scene
Just a pawn out-played by a dominating queen
It’s four o’clock in the morning
Damn it, listen to me good
I’m sleeping with myself tonight
Saved in time, thank God my music’s still alive…”

9.  Grace Is Gone – Dave Matthews Band
“Neon shines through smoky eyes tonight
It’s 2 am – I’m drunk again it’s heavy on my mind
I could never love again so much as I love you
Where you end where I begin is like a river going through
Take my eyes take my heart I need them no more
If never again they fall upon the one I so adore

Excuse me please one more drink
Could you make it strong cause I don’t need to think…”

10.  When The Night Kills The Day – Lauren Pritchard
“Go on ahead and bring me the roses
It’s almost time for me to be going
I’m so afraid that I might be led astray
How will I know to pull on the ropes and
it doesn’t seem like anything’s slowing
Nothing can save me when the night kills the day…”

11.  Body of Years – Mother Mother
“It’s just a body of years
That I leave all alone
Just a body of years
Now a pile of bones
Like a sheet of veneers
Each a piece of my soul
Like a pile of shit I can’t seem to forget
Just a body of years that I leave all alone

Tell tale diary pages
They unveil a ghost from the ages…”

12.  The Lonely – Christina Perri
“2 am; where do I begin?
Crying off my face again.
The silent sound of loneliness
Wants to follow me to bed.

I’m a ghost of a girl that I want to be most.
I’m the shell of a girl that I used to know well...”

13.  Breathe (2 am) – Anna Nalick
“There’s a light at each end of this tunnel, you shout
’cause you’re just as far in as you’ll ever be out
And these mistakes you’ve made, you’ll just make them again
If you only try turning around.

2 AM and I’m still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, it’s no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to…”

14.  On Nights Like Tonight – Matthew Good
“On nights like tonight when no one’s around
I sit in the dark on my hands on the ground
And I smile like the devil smiles, unseen but proud
But truth be told I don’t know who’s at the helm
Just sit tight and I’ll make my way to you

If I’m not on time
Remember that I tried…”

15.  Pandora’s Aquarium – Tori Amos
“I am not asking you to believe in me
Boy I think you’re confused
I’m not Persephone
Foam can be dangerous with tape across my mouth
These things you do, I never asked you how
Line me up in single file with all your grievances
Stare but I can taste you’re still alive below the waste
Ripples come and ripples go and ripple back to me…”

16.  Caves – Jack’s Mannequin
“Beat my body like a rag doll
you stuck the needles in my hip
Said ‘we’re not gonna lie
Son, you just might die
Get you on that morphine drip, drip’

The walls are caving in
As far as I can see
The walls are caving in
The doors got locked for sure
There’s no one here but me

I fought a war to walk a gang plank
Into a life I left behind
Windows leading to the past
Think it’s time I broke some glass
Get this history off my mind…”

17.  Shake It Out – Florence + The Machine
“I am done with my graceless heart
So tonight I’m gonna cut it out and then restart
‘Cause I like to keep my issues drawn
It’s always darkest before the dawn…

And it’s hard to dance with a devil on your back
So shake him off...”