“You Could Make a Killing” is a favorite song of mine. It’s been a favorite ever since the first time I heard it, on Aimee Mann’s 1995 album, I’m With Stupid. The song reminds me of a time in my life when I was wrapped up in the misery of being in a dysfunctional love and addicted to trying to fix it/make it all better. There’s a part of unhappiness that breeds more unhappiness, I think. And, there’s definitely a stubborn streak within me that tries to make every choice the right onw, even if the best beet is to cut and run. I’ve never been one to give up easily.

“There is nothing that competes with habit.
And, I know, it’s neither deep,
nor tragic,.
it’s simply that you have to have it.”

“You Could Make a Killing” by Aimee Mann
from the album, I’m With Stupid (1995)
Song Of The Day – April 20, 2011

I remember at the time that I first heard this song I felt much older than my years. Days were long and fraught with the inside out and upside down and spun around rollercoaster of never quite knowing where I stood, or what would fall apart next. I stole moments of bliss where I could, boxing them up and taping them shut, and hiding them deep inside myself, so I’d have them for later. Sometimes the good times had to suffice when everything else turned to bruises and decay. If I shut my eyes tight enough, clicked my heels together, could I go back to the home in those “better days” pictures in my head? All those pictures, though, they were never what the day-to-day really was. All those photographs of memories were just snapshots of a “vacation us.”

“I wish I was both young and stupid.”

But, like motel rooms and road trips, the impact of escape and anywhere-but-here wears out eventually. Everyone has to go back to reality some time. I watched it all decline, the you and the I, and wished for the youthful hope I once had, and for my naivete to kick back in.

It never did.

“You Could Make a Killing” feels like ripped pages from diaries written from those yeas of my life. Though it is often painful to recall (and sing-a-long to), it’s still a part of me. And this song, as well, is always a part of me, too.