My Gen X Playlist: Stay – Lisa Loeb

What is your favorite place to go in your city?

I used to live in Pasadena for years. We lived in a small condo that we outgrew, but we loved our location so much, we couldn’t move. Everything was walking distance. Target was a block north, Trader Joe’s was a block south. If we wanted to shop or eat dinner, restaurants and stores were a block east. On a sunny spring day, it was about a mile stroll west into Old Town. On the weekends, I walked to a nearby Starbucks for coffee and leisurely read the Sunday paper. During the Rose Parade, I rolled out of bed and headed up the street to watch the floats go by. I love a walking neighborhood.

For years we thought about moving to a bigger place, but our location anchored us to stay. We eventually made the difficult decision to move. That was such a perfect location to live, if only our place was a little bigger.

The theme of staying came to mind while writing this morning. It made me think about the coffeehouse song Stay by Lisa Loeb. The only relation this song has to today’s prompt is the title. Funny how at certain moments a single word can seem so powerful. This song has nothing to do with the moving or leaving home, yet it continues to play in a loop in my head. Stay.

Here’s a few interesting things about the song.

Long before this song became a hit, Loeb performed it at her shows, where it got a great response and was one of her most requested songs. Said Loeb: “I usually write songs that are more fictional, and for some reason when I sat down to write that song, I let myself write more about how I was feeling at that moment. And that’s something I think about a lot as I continue to write music, that the songs that I write that are more personal and without as much editing, are the ones that people connect to more.”

Regarding the lyrics, “I turned the radio on, I turned the radio up, and this woman was singing my song,” Lisa explains: “That was when you hear somebody telling your exact story. It’s funny, because it wasn’t until later, after a couple of major breakups, that I realized when you’re depressed and you’re going through these breakups, the breakup was supposed to happen. If you’re going through difficult times, it’s hilarious how you turn on the radio and even the most cliché things perfectly capture how you’re feeling. And then you realize why people wrote those songs. When you’re not going through some of those things, sometimes as a songwriter you think, “Oh, that’s so straightforward and cliché,” but you know what? That’s how it feels. In a way I think I wrote that into the song because I was relating my story to the effect that everybody goes through this. I’m not so special. You know, this isn’t such a special situation that I’m going through, but it still means something to me. And it might not be as depressing as my friend who’s suicidal, but it’s still really hard. Hopefully, as a listener, you get a feeling like when you just can’t get away from your problems. You leave your house, you’re driving down the road, you’re going to do something different, and all of a sudden you hear, Oh, here’s my story on the radio. It’s like the last thing I need to hear right now.”

Maybe we are never meant to stay in one place, no matter how perfect it may seem. And do we ever really leave entirely anyway? There always is a piece that remains with us no matter how far we go. Thinking this way makes leaving a little bit easier.

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For a complete playlist, please click here.

For the Spotify playlist, please click here.

You say I only hear what I want to
You say I talk so all the time. So?

And I thought what I felt was simple
And I thought that I don't belong
And now that I am leaving
Now I know that I did something wrong 'cause I missed you
Yeah, I missed you

And you say I only hear what I want to:
I don't listen hard
I don't pay attention to the distance that you're running
to anyone, anywhere
I don't understand if you really care
I'm only hearing negative: no, no, no (bad)

So I, I turned the radio on, I turned the radio up
And this woman was singin' my song:
The lover's in love and the other's run away
Lover is crying 'cause the other won't stay

Some of us hover when we weep for the other who was
Dying since the day they were born
Well. Well, this is not that:
I think that I'm throwing, but I'm thrown

And I thought I'd live forever, but now I'm not so sure

You try to tell me that I'm clever
But that won't take me anyhow, or anywhere with you

You said that I was naive
And I thought that I was strong
I thought, "Hey, I can leave, I can leave."
Oh, but now I know that I was wrong, 'cause I missed you
Yeah, I missed you

You said you caught me 'cause you want me
And one day you'd let me go
You try to give away a keeper, or keep me 'cause you know you're just so scared to lose
And you say, "Stay."

And you say I only hear what I want to