May 3, 2022

You've Seen The Difference And It's Getting Better All The Time



After The Snow
Modern English (1982)
Forty years ago today, Modern English released their second studio album, After The Snow.  It's not a record I ever had as a kid, but it has one of my favorite songs ever recorded: I Melt With You.

The song isn't as metaphorical as most listeners believe it to be.  It's about a couple who make love as nuclear war causes the end of the world around them.  In an interview, singer Robbie Grey said “I don’t think many people realized it was about a couple making love as the bomb dropped. As they made love, they become one and melt together.”


Since we started dating, this was the B-Side to "our song" for my wife and I.  Our main song is Take On Me, but truth be told, I think that I Melt With You is more descriptive of our relationship.  Neither of us are very social or outgoing people.  I have had times in my life where I tried to be, but it never works out and it always just ends up making me feel miserable.  For me, being social is like wearing a pair of shoes that doesn't fit just because they're in style.  I did it for the approval of others in the hopes of it allowing me to approve of myself.  As awful as the pandemic was, it had the side-effect in my life of helping me to accept who I really am.  My wife was able to do this much earlier in life than I was.  She was very social and outgoing in high school, but by her early 20's, she said "nope, that's not who I am", and she's never questioned it ever since.  It's one of the many reasons that I love and admire her.  So, a song about two people who have connected while the world dies off and the two of them melt together in the chaos is pretty close to the perfect song for who we are.

Moving forward using all my breath
Making love to you was never second best
I saw the world crashing all around your face
Never really knowing it was always mesh and lace

I'll stop the world and melt with you
You've seen the difference and it's getting better all the time
There's nothing you and I won't do
I'll stop the world and melt with you

Dream of better lives, the kind which never hate
Dropped in the state of imaginary grace
I made a pilgrimage to save this human's race
Never comprehending the race had long gone by

I'll stop the world and melt with you
You've seen the difference and it's getting better all the time
There's nothing you and I won't do
I'll stop the world and melt with you

The future's open wide

I'll stop the world and melt with you
I've seen some changes, but it's getting better all the time
There's nothing you and I won't do
I'll stop the world and melt with you

The future's open wide

I'll stop the world and melt with you
You've seen the difference and it's getting better all the time
There's nothing you and I won't do
I'll stop the world and melt with you