Music Review: Passenger "Let Her Go"

Passenger

Let Her Go

Album: All The Little Lights

Year: 2012

              Passenger realizes too late he let the love his life get away in the pitiful  “Let Her Go.”

      A sympathetic guitar opens the single, setting a consoling tone.   The chorus starts the single. Her breath, stinking of liquor and nicotine, chokes him as she tugs on his collar, whispering how much she loved last night. She blows him a kiss at his door before she leaves and says she wouldn’t mind hanging out again sometime. He gags once she closes the door. He checks his phone, filled with numbers of girls he doesn’t even remember and deletes them. He stops at this ex-girlfriend’s name. He presses her number, letting it dial and then quickly hangs up.  There is no way she would even want to speak to him after he told her he could do better. (“Well, you only need the light when it's burning low/Only miss the sun when it starts to snow/Only know you love her when you let her go/Only know you've been high when your'e feeling low/Only hate the road when you're missing home/Only know you love her when you let her go/And you let her go.”)

      He takes the vodka bottle from his bars and pours himself another glass. He is unable to get drunk enough to forget what an idiot he is. As a teenager, he thought he would find the perfect girl and marry her. However, he did and then complained about all her mundane habits. When he goes off to work, he can hear her exclaiming “I love this song!” and turning it up (to his then annoyance). He’s an unlovable person incapable of truly being with another. Love is not meant for him. He will die alone. (“Staring at the bottom of your glass/Hoping one day you'll make a dream last/But dreams come slow and they go so fast/You see her when you close your eyes/Maybe one day you'll understand why/Everything you touch surely dies.”)

          The chorus is sung again. Cue the weepy violin, wailing for the selfish and pretentenious.

       His eyes sting from the light and he walks around his apartment, pulling the blinds. He can’t even look at himself. He takes a swig from the bottle, hoping to fill the void inside of him. However, as he stumbles onto his bed, her smiling face is looking back at him. He reaches out to touch her bare shoulder but she disappears. (“Staring at the ceiling in the dark/Same old empty feeling in your heart/'Cause love comes slow and it goes so fast/Well you see her when you fall asleep/But never to touch and never to keep/Cause you loved her too much and you dived too deep.”)

           The chorus is sung again.

          In the bridge, he says “and you let her go” and “ohs.” Then he repeats “well you let her go.”

          The chorus is sung twice.

         He says “and you let her go” one more time to end the single.

           Passenger’s callow vocals over enuciate every syllable, unfurling his neverending anguish. He gasps from the unstoppable and bloodletting anguish, grabbing the person nearest him to feed off their emotions. Nonetheless, turning other people into miserable human beings doesn’t’ help. Oh, the mind crushing pain, it won’t ever end! Nonetheless, it’s the curse of being the wise, guitar playing guy found in dive bars and on city streets, full of knowledge about heartbreak and the tragedies of life. Fading into obscurity remains to be the only known cure.

           The pathetic  “Let Her Go”  throws itself a pity party with mandatory attendance for everyone who he has ever met, subjecting them to his drunken ramblings of how nice guys finish last.