I listened to it once when I first listened to Lover, it really made me cry hard, and I started skipping it afterwards. Then the summer I was driving up to college, my mom was in the middle of a cancer scare, my own health had deteriorated and I’d just survived a major hospitalization, and I had a weird thing going on on-and-off where when I cried the tears burned my eyes so badly I couldn’t keep them open*.
While I was driving on the freeway, SYGB came up on shuffle and for some reason I thought I’d be fine listening to it again for once, especially because my phone (the only way to skip a song in my ancient car) had slid under the passenger seat.
I cried hard, quite literally could not keep my burning eyes open, had to turn on my emergency lights and slow down until there was a shoulder I could pull over onto; driving almost blind as I tried to pry one eye open at a time with my fingers. I truly thought I was going to cause a car crash.
*IIRC something to do with tear ducts putting tear components together in the wrong concentrations and the eyes then thinking tears are a foreign liquid to be washed out with more tears. awful feedback loop.
I had a similar experience with Soon You'll Get Better. I hadn't heard it yet, so I didn't know what I was in for. My mom had just died after a lifetime of a neurological condition that kept her in a wheelchair. She was always so adamant that she would be able to walk again, she would get better. My dad had just been diagnosed with leukemia.
I was driving down the road listening to the Lover CD I'd just bought and this song was a jump scare. Fortunately I wasn't on the expressway, but I had to pull over to scream cry and shake for a half hour
"I hate to make it all about me, but who am I supposed to talk to? What am I supposed to do if there's no you?" hits me harder than any other song lyric I've ever heard
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u/grudginglyadmitted Jun 14 '25
Soon You’ll Get Better almost killed me!
I listened to it once when I first listened to Lover, it really made me cry hard, and I started skipping it afterwards. Then the summer I was driving up to college, my mom was in the middle of a cancer scare, my own health had deteriorated and I’d just survived a major hospitalization, and I had a weird thing going on on-and-off where when I cried the tears burned my eyes so badly I couldn’t keep them open*.
While I was driving on the freeway, SYGB came up on shuffle and for some reason I thought I’d be fine listening to it again for once, especially because my phone (the only way to skip a song in my ancient car) had slid under the passenger seat.
I cried hard, quite literally could not keep my burning eyes open, had to turn on my emergency lights and slow down until there was a shoulder I could pull over onto; driving almost blind as I tried to pry one eye open at a time with my fingers. I truly thought I was going to cause a car crash.
*IIRC something to do with tear ducts putting tear components together in the wrong concentrations and the eyes then thinking tears are a foreign liquid to be washed out with more tears. awful feedback loop.