Today’s song comes from the darkness. It’s “Snuff”, from Slip Knot’s album “All Hope is Gone.”
Yeah, this is one of my favorite songs that I found at a time that all hope actually was gone. You know how sometimes you find a theme song for however it is you’re feeling at the time? This was my theme song for a long time. I still love it, but it throws me right back into the dark.
It’s amazing how music can do that. Throw you back in time. There’s a certain Kansas song that transports me back to high school and I can see and feel everything that happened that night. I was at their concert and it didn’t go exactly how we’d planned, but we all survived and everything is good. It makes me nervous when I hear the song though. Just like Snuff makes me sad and gloomy and feeling like nothing is ever going to be better. But it’s been long enough that now I know things improve and hope can be reborn. I think I know why this song showed up too.
I was trying to watch the movie “Beautiful Boy.” I couldn’t do it though because I have one of those…a beautiful child lost in addiction. I read the book and I felt like sure this guy can do all this stuff because he’s got the money, but what about the rest of us? I felt for the father in that book because I know how hard it is to watch your child struggle with demons. I don’t know what happened to the kid in that movie. I think there was a second book, but if I remember correctly in the first one he was still addicted. I guess one is always addicted though, just living in recovery if not using.
Addiction runs in my family, I grew up with an alcoholic father. It doesn’t make it any easier to deal with though. Maybe harder? If your parent is an addict you become whatever you need to in order to survive. I have siblings who played different roles. One was super out going and always doing things, one ended up worse than my father. I disappeared. I made myself as small as possible so no one would notice and I tried to be perfect so I wouldn’t get in trouble. I can remember that feeling of dread when I realized my partner was an alcoholic and how I reverted into the roles from my childhood. But when it’s your child you can’t disappear. You still feel like it though and it still throws you back to who you were when you were little.
That’s where Snuff comes from. That song was the song I clung to when I gave my partner an ultimatum. He chose alcohol and drugs. I was devastated. I felt like I had lost everything. I felt like all hope was gone.
“Snuff”
Bury all your secrets in my skin
Come away with innocence, and leave me with my sins
The air around me still feels like a cage
And love is just a camouflage for what resembles rage again…
So if you love me, let me go.
And run away before I know.
My heart is just too dark to care.
I can’t destroy what isn’t there.
Deliver me into my fate –
If I’m alone I cannot hate
I don’t deserve to have you…
My smile was taken long ago
If I can change I hope I never know
I still press your letters to my lips
And cherish them in parts of me that savor every kiss
I couldn’t face a life without your light
But all of that was ripped apart when you refused to fight
So save your breath, I will not hear.
I think I made it very clear.
You couldn’t hate enough to love.
Is that supposed to be enough?
I only wish you weren’t my friend.
Then I could hurt you in the end.
I never claimed to be a saint…
Ooh, my own was banished long ago
It took the death of hope to let you go
So break yourself against my stones
And spit your pity in my soul
You never needed any help
You sold me out to save yourself
And I won’t listen to your shame
You ran away – you’re all the same
Angels lie to keep control…
Ooh, my love was punished long ago
If you still care, don’t ever let me know
If you still care, don’t ever let me know…
Writing me crazy 