Paul Garside's "That There Is Our Problem" Review

The "boo hoo" part is a surprise the first time you hear it. It should sound like a joke, kind of, but it isn't. That left me sitting with a contradiction for a while after the song was over.

“That There Is Our Problem” by Paul Garside is not what I'd been expecting when I picked the song. I'd imagined it to be about a couple that was breaking up in some normal way. It instead becomes something different, a man who is in competition with God for someone's love, and it somehow works.

There's a lot of pounding of the guitar here, but it's not rushed and instead gives each note time before the next one appears. The pacing doesn't seem rushed at all. It only plays out the way a person speaks when they are finally being true to themselves about something painful.

The memory that remains with me is the change in the singing halfway through. It sounds more like frustration, especially in the beginning, as if someone is simply reacting in the moment. Then it becomes something more like genuine grief, and you don't notice the shift until it has happened.

But it's the warm, old, weathered banjo and bouzouki of Niilo Sirola that creeps in here at the bottom, like the sound of a room full of many conversations over the years. It does not distract from the story at all; it just gives it more space.

I thought about the news story that this song apparently was inspired by: a man who was overcome with jealousy and lashed out at a church. Written down, it seems like it's almost unbelievable. Once it becomes a song, though, it no longer sounds unbelievable, it feels like it's hurting.

By the end of the chorus I wasn't much concerned with the humor. I just sat with this quiet sadness, this sadness that had come from wanting to be someone's whole world, and realising I couldn't be more than they loved, more than everything else. Hence this one sticks with me. Not because it's clever, but because it's something that most people would never say aloud.