We Both Can Fall, by Michellar, touched up by the haunting hand of Gracie Lou, falls about you like a fading quilt in the hush of the midnight, like a soft blanket against the moaning of the storms within us that will not allow us to sleep. It sticks, this song in the soul, with a bare reality that lingers way beyond its notes have faded into sound, and which is tugging at the fibers of our own suppressed suffering. Michellar, born of the throbbing heart of San Francisco as a phoenix in the ruins of forgotten things, in this tender ballad, puts all the pieces of her life together, the delicate petals of love rubbing against the thorns of unrelinquishing hope, and reminding me of all those unspoken wars we all wage in the name of union.
The voices are interwoven with weariness and warmth, Gracie Lou weaving in strands like confessions whispered in low lamps, tugging that cosy aching in the chest, as though old wounds are being stitched up again to be healed. The pedal steel moans like the wind in the autumn leaves, and violins swell light as other waves, and create a world snug and infinite, heavy with the odor of yesterdays--echoes throwing back and forth in a room of half-remembered dreams. The music slows down and meanders like a stream cutting through rock, allowing the lyrics room to sink in, and bringing that poignant nostalgia, a tug towards what was, without disappearing upon darkness.
I find the journey that Michellar takes to be most compelling: after leaving her craft years ago, she was inspired once again by a silent swell of faith, and in joining forces with Tobias, she is shaping words and music into a story written on her very soul. Stretching over oceans--her voice snatched in the foggy air of the Bay, refined way out in the ocean--is a reflection of the plea of the song to mended bridges, as of hands that stretched through clouds. It is as warm and smooth as the freshly made bread that we breadwinners often claim, and it still has an electric charge of what has always been and what is newly being told by the singers like Kelly Clarkson, as a way of saying that melodies can sew the tears in our narratives to help us feel less alone in the telling.
When Michellar sings this, she does not simply sing, she pulls you to her renewal, the universal spark of fresh rebornings. A sweet lament of clinging on in the swirl, it gives you an embrace--imperfect, human, natural, as the ties we value, lame as well as cannot be broken.
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