The lyre of Orpheus

There was a summer, not long after Breathless came out, when I listened to it on repeat. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds — a song unlike most of theirs, bucolic and jangling, amateur flute fluttering at the edges. It had a kind of shimmer to it, as though it had been recorded in the light of some eternal afternoon. But for me it wasn’t carefree. It was devastating.

The refrain caught me by the throat every time: “For we are all breathless without you”

I didn’t hear it as breathless from passion or joy. I heard it as without breath — as in, without her, there is no breath. No air. No movement. No life. Eurydice gone. And if she is gone, then every red-breasted robin, every leaf trembling on its stalk, every bee drunken with pollen is simply pantomime. Beauty persists, but it is hollowed out.

Soon after, I went with my family to Extremadura — to my mother and stepfather’s home. We had a tradition then, at our gatherings, of sharing something that meant something to us. A poem, a song, a story. Something to pass around the table like a bowl of fire, so we could all feel it, burn our hands on it a little.

I chose Breathless.

Before I played the song, I asked them to read the lyrics. I spoke — probably too long — about the myth of Orpheus and the idea that when Eurydice is lost, the world should lose its breath too. I said I thought that was what the song was really about. Not joy, but grief disguised as sunlight. I told them how I couldn’t stop listening to it, how I felt it was holding something I hadn’t been able to name.

Then I played it.

As the song chirruped and danced its way forward — all soft strumming and flutes, lambs and bees and happy hooded bluebells — I saw them both crying. Not misty-eyed, but weeping. Quietly. Openly. I hadn’t expected that.

Only later did my mum tell me that when they listened to the song again after I left, they didn’t quite understand what had moved them so deeply the first time. The spell didn’t hold. The song alone didn’t do it.

Which is when I understood that it wasn’t the song, really. It was the way I loved it. The way I clutched it like a talisman. The breathless part wasn’t just Nick’s. It was mine.