Video: Brandy Clark – “Who You Thought I Was”
Directed by Claire Marie Vogel. From Your Life Is A Record, out March 6 on Warner.
There’s a line in a Wilco song that has gotten to me since the first time I heard it over twenty years ago: “What you once were isn’t what you want to be anymore.” People, especially those of us who are prone to nostalgia, spend a lot of their time looking back and thinking that life was better when they were younger.
At some point, maturity and a little self-awareness tend to kick in and you realize that your younger self was kind of a dipshit. At best, a lovable dipshit. But a dipshit nonetheless.
And then you might come to the conclusion that you’re still not quite the human being you’d like to be. And there’s a lot of work left to do. It’s humbling. And daunting.
Brandy Clark, who wrote my favorite song of 2018 (“Pray to Jesus” by the Oak Ridge Boys), gets it.
Now I wanna be honest
Now I wanna be better
Now I wanna be the me I should’ve been when we were together
I wanna be at least almost close to worth your love
I wanna be who you thought I was
Right? These are lyrics that will stick with you for the next twenty years.
John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats, who is certainly no slouch when it comes to writing lyrics, shared this song and said, “Brandy Clark once again making the other songwriters, present company included, look like amateurs.”
A songwriter’s songwriter. I’ve been really getting into these lately.
Brandy Clark: web, twitter, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki.
Video: Wilco – “A Shot In The Arm” (live at Glastonbury 1999)
Originally from Summerteeth (Reprise, 1999).