Nothing Else Matters when Bif Naked is your muse

Bif Naked came into my life in an odd way, the leading edge of a wave of the odd, the uncanny, the revelatory. This song has a lot of meaning for me, coming as it did amidst upheaval, chaos and — ultimately — awakening. And she came right into the middle of something else.

I’ve had a soul-mate come in and out of my life every now and again over the past couple decades. We’ve tried the relationship thing a couple or three times, but that never seems to work out for us. Yet there’s an undeniable, inexplicable connection and from time-to-time we spend some time in each other’s lives.

She has an uncanny way of being there when I need a shake-up. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say, she catalyzes it. She was there amidst all the revelations and chaos, and amidst all the Bif and Sheryl Crow and Veda Hille I was listening to at the time. If she hadn’t been there, I’m not sure I’d have been able to get through all the changes, all the healing, all the revelation and transformation. I found strength in her presence, and encouragement when I needed it most.

When I say she was there, I mean in a spiritual sense. We weren’t seeing each other at the time, but spending hours on the phone and doing the new-fangled epistolary exchanges of email, trading Facebook hearts, flowers and kisses, posting music and enigmatic status messages. As usual, it was brief, intense, ecstatic, heart-wrenching and, ultimately, a time of immense growth and a gripping reminder of the exquisite and wondrous possibilities of love and spiritual connection.

In the center of it all was this song along with a few others from Bif, Sheryl and Veda. No other song, though, speaks to those possibilities with more intensity than this one.

I love that feeling. I love having it. I love feeling the possibility of having that feeling. I also love being able to “just be” in the presence of my soulmate. There’s a comfort between us now that stays within the rhythm and melody of the song. We opened our minds to a different tune, and found the harmony. Looked at from this new perspective, the lyric has every bit as much meaning.

Nothing Else Matters would come again just a few months later, this time attached to someone new. And it was also an epistolary connection. It was every bit as intense, ecstatic, passionate, every bit as much a time of growth, healing and transformation. I look back and know that my life was richer for exploring the possibility then, and I am better for it now.

Nothing else matters…. That feeling had come before. It will come again. When I open my heart to a different tune, I feel it in the here and now.

btw: this is a cover of Metallica’s original and while it’s fairly faithful to at least one of the live renditions I’ve heard of it, orchestration and all, there’s just a little something extra special about the vulnerability in Bif’s more plaintive voice. There is strength in vulnerability, and bravery in opening your heart to all the possibilities of love, passion and connection.