Cassandra Coleman — “End Of Your Love”

Cassandra Coleman has found an ingenious way to ruin a perfectly good relationship: start grieving it before it's over. “End Of Your Love” isn't really about somebody leaving. It's about becoming so convinced they eventually will that you start scanning an otherwise functioning love for the emergency exit. Should I run? Will you warn me? Are you going tomorrow? When are you going to leave me? The man hasn't necessarily packed a bag. We've already forwarded his mail.

What makes the anxiety more interesting is the crown sitting on Cassandra's head. She never asked for it. Someone else decided she was extraordinary, and now she has to live with the terrifying possibility that eventually they'll discover she's human. I made no claims for greatness / You put this crown upon my head. The fantasy fades, morning arrives, and underneath all that projection is her wonderfully plain admission: “I am just a woman.” Will you still love me then?

There's something fitting about hearing that question on a record Cassandra deliberately didn't want scrubbed clean. Much of her debut EP was recorded with a full band together at Nashville's Sound Emporium because, as she puts it, music isn't supposed to be perfect, it's supposed to be real, “living and breathing.” Maybe people deserve the same arrangement. Take off the crown. Leave in the imperfections. See who sticks around.

Of course, knowing that intellectually doesn't stop the nervous system from filing an objection. Cassandra reduces the entire condition to five devastatingly efficient words: “I am made of worry.” That's the trouble with waiting for the end of someone's love. Spend enough time looking toward the exit and you can miss the inconvenient fact that they're still standing right there.

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