{"id":163292,"date":"2023-02-15T12:00:21","date_gmt":"2023-02-15T17:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=163292"},"modified":"2023-02-17T10:36:45","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T15:36:45","slug":"love-songs-up-in-hudson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2023\/02\/15\/love-songs-up-in-hudson\/","title":{"rendered":"Love Songs: \u201cUp in Hudson\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Hudson, New York. Wikimedia Commons<\/a>, Licensed under CCO 3.0.<\/p><\/div>\n

There was a month in spring several years ago when I rode Amtrak ten times in two weeks, taking the 7:05 A.M.<\/small> out of Boston Back Bay and returning from Penn Station on the latest train possible. I had to be in New York for various reasons and obligations, but the person I loved was in Boston and my logic was simple: I did not want to spend a night apart from him.<\/span><\/p>\n

I spent many hours with my forehead pressed against the cool glass of the train window, taking in flashes of the Connecticut coastline, mouthing the words to the Dirty Projectors\u2019 \u201cUp in Hudson,\u201d a song David Longstreth wrote as part of his 2017 breakup album, which chronicles his split with Amber Coffman, former bandmate and partner.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why was I so obsessed with a breakup song while experiencing a love that made me feel like I\u2019d been hit in the solar plexus with a bag of cement? It\u2019s the chorus that was stuck in my head, for reasons I wasn\u2019t totally aware of. \u201cLove will burn out, and love will just fade away,\u201d Longstreth sings over and over, bitterly interrupting his own melody, cutting through parts of the song that describe falling in love (\u201cIn a minivan in New England, our eyes met \/ We said yes and we said yes\u201d; \u201cFirst time I ever kissed your mouth, we both felt time stop\u201d).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What I couldn\u2019t see then\u2014or didn\u2019t know I saw\u2014was that the end with this person I loved was drawing near. It\u2019s in the very structure of the song, how it alternates between their love story and that distressing chorus (\u201clove\u2019s gonna rot, and love will just dissipate\u201d). Though when I hear those lines now, I can\u2019t help but think of the verse that follows: \u201cNow we’re going our separate ways \/ But we’re still connected.\u201d Maybe that\u2019s just Longstreth trying to console himself with a generic, post-breakup line. But now, I still find myself asking what the nature of that connection is\u2014if absence really can still hold two people together years later, and what claims that makes on the heart.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI’m just up in Hudson, bored and destructive,\u201d Longstreth sings in the last verse, \u201cknowing that nothing lasts.\u201d On one particularly long Amtrak ride, I spent the hours compulsively scrolling through my camera roll, zooming in on photos of us, smiling faces frozen in time. I see now that I was already, even then, trying to reassure myself as to what I had\u2014and as such, admitting its loss. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Camille Jacobson is <\/em>The\u00a0Paris Review‘s engagement editor.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI still find myself asking what the nature of that connection is\u2014if absence really can still hold two people together years later, and what claims that makes on the heart.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2289,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1187],"tags":[67827,19039,17993,2316],"class_list":["post-163292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-music","tag-featured","tag-hudson","tag-love-songs","tag-the-dirty-projectors"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLove Songs: \u201cUp in Hudson\u201d by Camille Jacobson<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"February 15, 2023 \u2013 \u201cI still find myself asking what the nature of that connection is\u2014if absence really can still hold two people together years later, and what claims that makes on the heart.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" 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