Songs of a Lost Lover: Motel 6

With 589 scrobbles on Last.FM in just the last two years, I have been rightfully obsessed with Motel 6 by indie band River Whyless. Track 3 off their 2018 album “Kindness, A Rebel”, written by Ryan O'Keefe, takes us through the painful moving stages of a breakup. The love described in this song is a nomad love, a kind of love that makes home, any place your lover is. I found this song from one of the first people I truly fell in love with. He texted me as I was miles and miles away on a beach. “I’m obsessed with this song”. I listened to every song he sent me because in my mind, if I loved everything about him, I’d love everything he loved too. This song changed things though, it cut deeper than any other recommendations he had thrown at me. The way O’Keefe sang about his movement forward, almost so fast he lost sight of what was right in front of him, seemed to strike a chord with me. I was 2,000 miles away, miserable without him, miserable in such a beautiful place; moving forward so fast so I didn’t have to feel the past nor the present. Like O’Keefe, I was in a treacherous mental battle with myself. I sought comfort in movement; in controlling and propelling my life forward. Only three more days until Friday, only three more weeks until winter break, until I was inevitably on vacation and I was desolate. But he was my comfort in a rainstorm. 

When home isn’t four walls and a white picket fence but someone you love and you lose them, you’re practically emotionally homeless. The instrumentation swelling just as O’Keefe realizes that for the first time in his ever fast-paced, roamer life, he genuinely fears waking up alone truly cements the desperation of his cries. When you completely lose yourself to somebody and they up and leave, you can’t try to pick up the pieces because there are no pieces left; you are torn up blank canvas. You have to rebuild your house after the tornado destroyed it. When living fast and living in delusion there is no space to feel, and sometimes that’s exactly what’s comfortable. But love is intoxicating and all-encompassing. When you truly love someone, it’s as though you can finally stop, breathe, and feel. 

Two weeks after he showed me this song, we split up. Every melody that made it feel like a love song had turned sour. But within the anguish I felt, I realized I related to this song more than ever. Longing isn’t living, it’s suffering. Leaving your love at the local Motel 6 hurts, and if you’re like me, it will hurt for a very long time. But with great suffering, comes great art, and great art creates a beautiful and equally sad community. Motel 6 is stunning, incredible art that fosters relatability in dark times.