Girl, Leave Your Boots By The Bed We Ain’t Leaving This Room

This song is a movie in my mind where I’m the main character

You know it’s a good song when you’re absorbed in something else, and your consciousness is invaded by lyrics and a melody. From your focused state, you feel yourself get forcibly sucked out by a particular line. You know that if you don’t stop what you’re doing and start the song over, save it to your library and give it a proper listen, you’ll regret it because something inside is going to demand you hear those words and feel that way again.

But I made it through, ’cause somebody knew I was meant for someone

I’m one of those weirdos who often prefers a cover to an original. Morgan Wallen’s cover of ‘Cover Me Up’ by Jason Isbell is a job inarguably well done. The first time I heard this song, I was scrubbing my kitchen. A dull, necessary part of my Saturday morning ritual that is often the only ‘me time’ I get as a wife and mother. On the surface, I’m a pragmatic, logical realist, but deep down, I’m a dreamer.

I’m a romantic at heart with an overactive imagination, and I don’t know that there’ll ever come a time when I don’t dream about the thrill and anticipation of an all-consuming, earth-shifting love.

This song sparks a reel in my mind of a bittersweet love story where I’m the girl who meets the boy who needs saving from himself. It transports me back to a time when a relationship is in its infancy. Days can be lost underneath the covers, bodies entangled, and everything else like food, oxygen, water… seems secondary to survival.

So girl, leave your boots by the bed We ain’t leaving this room ’Til someone needs medical help Or the magnolias bloom

As the gentle beat and rhythm guitar mark the pace for my scrubbing brush, I imagine a strong set of arms looping around me from behind—a set of weathered fingers tracing my forearm in adoration, recalling the feeling of being truly desired.

Knowing that your presence, your touch, your scent was the cure for someone’s demons.

An unhealthy fixation on how it feels to need another human being.

Soon I'm no longer cleaning. I’m swaying. Slow dancing to the steady beat in a cosy room under the glow of firelight. That defining moment in the film where you know it’s all about to come crashing down because it feels too perfect.

And the river runs through And carries this house on its stones Like a piece of driftwood

For four minutes and fifty-two seconds, I manage to forget that my real life is void of anything resembling romance. The transportation into the depths of my imagination with a soundtrack that moves me is enough to fill the cup just enough to get by.

Words have that effect on me. It’s why I read and why I write. But words laced with the perfect melody? That’s an entirely different trip.

I’ve always sought comfort in the confines of my mind. It’s the only place I’m truly myself. The real world is harsh and unforgiving. Real-life is rarely like the movies and doesn’t play out how the pretty words on the pages you get lost in make it out to.

Escapism. The fantasy—that’s what keeps us going when life is serving us blow after blow.

It’s a game, the briefest moment of giving yourself permission to play pretend.

It’s cold in this house and I ain’t going out to chop wood So cover me up and know you’re enough To use me for good

It’s not a picture-perfect fairytale. Maybe that’s why this song is the one that calls to me on a subconscious level.

Needing someone is romanticised, but it’s not healthy. Putting the burden of your recovery and survival on another person isn’t fair. Locking yourself out from the world and finding your intoxication in a human substance is still an addiction.

And like a switch flipping in my brain, I’m pulled out of the fantasy and back to reality. The illusion is less alluring. It’s too intense and suffocating. This movie doesn’t have a happy ending.

I guess that’s why they never show you what happens afterwards. You get the rush, the anticipation, the intoxication. But you never see what happens when all is said and done. And you figure, beyond doubt, that if this movie had a sequel, that girl would spend her Saturday mornings scrubbing her kitchen, listening to a great love song and dreaming of another place.

And suddenly, the real world doesn’t seem so bad.

And the old lover’s sing “I thought it’d be me who helped him get home” But home was a dream One that I’d never seen ’til you came along