“I Don’t Want To Change You” is Track 4 from Damien Rice’s 2014 Album, My Favourite Faded Fantasy, produced by Rick Rubin. It was my first Favorite off the Album and continues to be so. It is one of those Songs that can make me cry when I listen to it. Mostly it does that, makes me cry. Though there is hope in the Lyrics, there’s heartache and heartbreak in there, too. It makes me think about love and relationships, and the notion of loving without wanting to change someone. That kind of love feels rare. Special. Beautiful.
“I Don’t Want To Change You” by Damien Rice
from the Album, My Favourite Faded Fantasy (2014)
The Lyric “where love has eyes and is not blind” gets me every time. “Love is blind” is such a common saying, one that feels accusatory sometimes, and feels like giving up. Is love blind? Is it always that way? Or is there love with eyes open, sighted and seeing? I’d like to think the latter is real and possible.
Caitlin White, of MTV News, wrote this when “I Don’t Want To Change You” was released:
Damien Rice was put on this earth solely to break our hearts, and after eight years without his gut-wrenching songwriting, he has finally returned. Just in time for the lonely, nostalgia-inducing months of winter that will undoubtedly have you feeling things again, Rice has announced his first new album since 2006.
Out on November 10, My Favourite Faded Fantasy was produced by Rick Rubin, and based on the release of today’s video for “I Don’t Want To Change You,” it will evoke the same kind of unstoppable sadness that his last two albums contained.