The Top-10 Songs of All (My) Time, #7: Somebody That I Used to Know

I was lucky. My parents had a wonderful, normal, healthy relationship. I met my soulmate when I was 15 and started dating her when I was 18 (going on 19) and we’ve been together ever since. She’s normal. SHw as normal then. And is normal now. She’s nice, honest, funny, wicked smart, and makes me better, and my life better, because she’s in it. My wife’s parents are normal and had a great marriage.

But ya know what fascinated me all through college and after? How different other relationships are. How dysfunctional some relationships are because of the bizarre world-view of one, or both, of the people in that relationship.

Some dudes in college were a source of endless entertainment. Guys just couldn’t figure out the whole girlfriend thing. Things like “buying a girl a dozen red roses on a first date.” No. No. No. Or saying “I love you” on a second date. Record. Scratch. They’d come to me for advice, as if I actually knew what I was doing …I was figuring it out, too, but just had a better head-start (see first paragraph). The questions they’d ask would be things like, “when should she meet my parents?”  I’d have to convince them to let it happen naturally and “you’ll know”, but definitely not after one month and 3 “sorta dates.”

“But she’s perfect,” they’d say.

“Give it at least a month,” I’d beg.

When things went bad, oh boy, they went really bad.

One guy slept over at a girl’s apartment and when she left and went to class, he stayed there all day, cleaned her apartment, and cooked dinner (if you’re not reading between the lines, it was a random hook-up). When this girl got home he was expecting her to be instantly in love and they’d be together forever …instead, she told him, please leave and she was freaked out. He came back to the frat and was beside himself. “Can you believe HER,” he asked? He fully believed that staying at her place all day, making her bed, vacuuming, dusting, doing her laundry, folding it, and putting it away and then cooking dinner (complete with candles, a tablecloth, and flowers) was the sweetest, nicest thing and she was a psycho for not thinking the same. 

If I did that tomorrow, currently in my 27th year of marriage, yes, I would score huge points.  But if I did that after a one-night-stand …a restraining order would be a justified response. 

This dude told us all his version of the story. Desperately trying to find one of us who would agree that, yes, he’s romantic and the girl was in the wrong for not thanking him and having dinner and, yes, she didn’t know what she was missing out on. He was pretty convincing. But he only told us the parts that made him sound normal and her sound like a “total bitch.” Sorry. His words. 

What we heard (his version):  He met a girl. They had a great evening. Talking. Laughing. Like, love at first sight. She took him home. He made her dinner the next day. She thought that was too serious too fast.

What he left out (that we learned in bits and pieces over a weeks time):  She kinda snuck out in the morning and didn’t say anything the next morning. Probably embarrassed. Wait, for sure embarrassed. She stayed away the entire day giving him ample time to leave. She actually came back at 1 p.m. and when she got to the door, she heard the vacuum running in her apartment so she went to a friend’s apartment.  She came back at 4 p.m. and realized he was still there and was cooking shit in her kitchen. She went to a neighbor’s apartment. Finally, with neighbors standing in the hall, she opened her apartment door, and basically asked, “what the hell are you doing?” …and then, “please leave.”

I should’ve taken that story and written this song.  Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” is my 7th favorite song of all time.  It brilliantly captures the mindset of a psycho dude who looks around and sees all his friends in amazing, fun relationships and asks, “why the hell can’t I get a girlfriend.”  Sadly, us “normals” know why …because he, and guys like him in college and their 20s, are still figuring things out. Guess what cook-dinner-the-next-day guy never did again? He never mistook a fun night for a love-at-first-sight Hollywood movie moment.

I have quite a few stories like these. From college and then from my 20s when I got out in the workforce.

The first 2/3rds of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” tells us the guy’s side. It’s obviously a song about a guy with a broken heart because some terrible, horrible girl played him for a fool and left with nary an explanation. No calls. No conversation. The girl just sent her friends to get her records from Gotye’s apartment. But then …oh, no, no …the guy wasn’t telling us everything because when the female vocalist takes the final verse we realize, oh, dude, you’re a psycho and you were never over your last girlfriend and, sounds like, you were kind of a dick. The song gives the listener whiplash.

It’s brilliant and it’s my #7 favorite song of all time because it captures the psycho-dating mistakes that doom many young, early relationships. Just brilliant.

Stick around for #6, soon.  And if you missed #8, #9, and #10 …click either of those links and read about those. Oh, and below is an incredible dance video version over the music that I’ve watched a dozen times. If I had a “bucket list”, I would put “dancing in this video” on that list.