Forever Blue part one - Baby did a bad bad thing

There are some songs I avoid. When I hear one on the radio it's no big deal, as I just flip to the next station. When I'm in a store and hear it come on, then I have to grit my teeth and wait it out. Some associations are hardwired into me. I have a relationship with music that is hard to explain. For Chris Isaak's Forever Blue, it's even more complicated. This album defines how I felt when I was cheated on the first time by my ex. In fact, after everything went down, I wrapped myself up in this music, and for all intents and purposes, died. As the years went on and her behavior remained the same, I found myself changing in ways I never imagined. I was murdering myself just to stay with her. 

Baby did a bad bad thing by Chris Isaak will forever remind me of my then girlfriend and now ex-wife's dirty deeds. Chris Isaak was my friend after Kate cheated on me and kicked me out of the bed and onto the floor in the next room. I sat in my green thrift store chair and drank cheap beer and listened to him dramatize my heartache. In fact, I'm pretty sure this was the moment I became a full-blown alcoholic. 

Backing up, though, this song is off Isaak's album Forever Blue, released in 1995. Take a peek at the tracklist here. Now, I think you'll agree this is the kind of music to die to. I drank and I sank deeper in my chair, and I wanted the alcohol to numb me out of my skin. I was 21 and hated my life. I wagered big on a girl who took my virgin heart and seemingly with malice trashed it. It took me years to pick up the pieces. But before I did, I took an awful detour down some dark roads. 

Without any means to properly express the dire situation I had found myself in, I turned inward on my feelings like they were the enemy, and I tried to extinguish them. It was awful, now that I look back on it, but somehow I survived. My alcoholism deepened, unfortunately, but God wasn't done with me. What I'm struck by now is how unfairly I treated myself. I hated my reaction to the whole thing. I hated the fact that she did what she did, but I didn't expect myself to feel so sick about it. I murdered my feelings about the whole thing, as many men do, because I could not deal with them. It took me years to unravel that mess. The key to my healing came when I stopped drinking almost five years ago. That's when I finally started to process all of the awful things that happened. God told me I had to stop drinking, so I did, but I never imagined all of the reasons why I needed to obey that command.

When I heard this song recently, I realized I needed to explore what I was feeling. This may seem tedious to my readers, and I apologize in advance. This album was my feelings externalized, as I had no way to express what was happening inside me. For the curious reader, the whole album can be found on YouTube here. I thought perhaps I could go track by track and talk about the entire album, but that is expecting too much of my readers. I've selected certain tracks to focus on instead. Thank you for following my strange life, and while I may not understand your interest in it, please know I am grateful.