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The one who survives by making the lives
Of others worthwhile
She's coming apart
Right before my eyes

When I was first introduced to Vienna Teng, by Marc, he mentioned something about her songs, and about a lot of people having one that was Theirs, that really spoke to them, more than anything else. He has one, and rm has one, and Alys has found one, and I've no doubt that a lot of her fans who I never will know have a song.

The one who depends on the services she renders
To those who come knocking
She's seeing too clearly what she can't be
What understanding defies

And I mean, I love a lot of her songs. A *lot*. Two days ago I was extolling the virtues of "Whatever You Want". I use "Lullaby for a Stormy Night" more than any lullaby except the one I grew up with. There are waltzes, and Last Waltzes, and Pentultimate Waltzes and none of them compare to one silly little dance to "Between". "City Hall" makes me tear up every time I hear it, "Stray Italian Greyhound" is my personal anthem to the joys of New Relationship Energy, "My Medea" played just right has brought me stability when I truly needed it...the list goes on and on.

She says "I need not to need

Vienna is, as I've said, my Tori Amos. She is the epitome of one of my most oft-used playlists, "Sad girls with pretty voices". It's for when I am lost. Or lonely. Or melancholic. For when I need help to cope. For when I need strength. By this point...I've got 21 of her songs starred, marked as good. I don't need the playlist anymore. I just need Vienna.

Or else a love with intuition
Someone who reaches out to my weakness
And won't let go

And of course, of all those songs I've got marked as wonderful, as amazing, as worth listening to, I have one of them that, from the moment I first listened to the lyrics, first talked to me and me alone. When I first found her, I found she had free songs linked on her webpage, just four little downloads. "Homecoming" is okay, and "Gravity" is lovely, and "Harbor" was the first song I heard of her and really noticed.

I need not to need
I've always been the tower
But now I feel like I'm the flower trying to bloom in snow"

And then there was "The Tower".

She turns up the light
Anticipating night falling tenderly around her
Watches the dusk

It is a three minute and fifty-three second mp3 that you may get off the internet for free. If you would like to hear it, you may click on this link right here.

The words won't come

It is a three minute and fifty-three second free mp3 that grabbed me and gave me a gift of its lyrics and said "hello". It said "Hello" and called me Little Girl, and politely offered me the chance to put all those vague thoughts that drift through the back of my mind into a song, one that I could listen to, and sing, and give to other people if I so chose. It gave me a copy of myself, of the parts I don't always show, of the parts I don't always admit.

She carries the act so convincingly
The fact is sometimes she believes it

It gave me the knowledge that, all these parts I don't show, all these parts I don't admit? I am not alone in these thoughts. It gave me safety in numbers. Security, of sorts. I may be crazy, but I'm not the only one.

She can be happy with the way things are
Be happy with the things she's done

And oh dear gods, did I need it. I needed it at the time, and I needed it other times, and I need it tonight. Every once in a while, I go and find and read the lyrics, and I'm shaken all over again to realize just how much I need this song, because I realize just how true it is to me.

And yet I need not to need

...Because I hate needing, because that means someone else has to waste their time and energy and life and happiness helping me. I hate taking that from people.

Or else a love with intuition
Someone who reaches out to my weakness
And won't let go

Sometimes I think I have found such a love, and when I realize it, I'm struck with fear at how unbelievably lucky I really am. But most of the time, I accept that no one will ever have the perfect sense to know when I need them, and I'm terrible at offering weakness anyways, and it doesn't matter, since this should be me in the first place, taking care of myself. I need not to need, after all.

I need not to need
I've always been the tower
But now I feel like I'm the flower trying to bloom in snow

Ultimately? Being strong is hard. Being fragile is harder.

Reach out, hold back
Where is safety
Reach out and hold back
Where is the one who can change me
Where is the one
The one

I need not to need
Or else a love with intuition
Someone who reaches out to my weakness
And won't let go
I need not to need
I've always been the tower
But now I feel like I'm the flower trying to bloom in snow

I feel like I'm the flower trying to bloom in the snow
The danger and the power
Friend and the foe

It is not always my favourite of all the Vienna Teng songs. But whatever else happens, I think that it is, and will always be, My song.

~Sor
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