My Favorite Song Right Now: "Evan" by Juliana Hatfield

I wish this weren't a song; I wish it were a book. The opening lyrics could be the first sentence of a story I would read a thousand times:

"Evan, I've never been the same since the day I hit my forehead on the doorframe when I jumped over you and out of the bed to answer the phone in my mother's room."

And then the next lyric goes: "There was blood, but I was all smiles, 'cause I was in love."

So actually, no -- I want it to be a song, and a young adult novel, and a movie, directed by Richard Linklater or some other brainy yet chill romantic. 

If you're like me and born at the right time and of the right temperament to have spent much of your early adolescence fascinated by the mystery of Evan Dando and Juliana Hatfield's friendship, then this song'll be a lovely and gut-punching and totally belated gift to you. I heard it for the first time on Sunday morning and I've listened over and over since then -- partly because I'll just never get over certain teenhood obsessions, partly because the Evan-Juliana dynamic is similar to the dynamic between the two main characters in my book (troubled/reckless/childlike boy + hyper-introverted/daydreamy/strong-willed girl), and so I'm studying them. What I've learned from "Evan" is that it's possible to still be a tender fucked-up kid even when you're not a kid at all anymore, and that the preservation of that tender fucked-up-ness is probably not good for much more than writing beautiful songs (/books/movies), and that people who write beautiful songs (/books/movies) are my favorite people in the world.
 
I don't know how you hit your forehead on a doorframe unless you're very tall, but I believe it happened -- we're clumsy when we're in love. But Juliana Hatfield is so graceful too. And in the second half of the song she repeats the line "Evan, I just love you, I guess" eight times, and every time it makes my heart hurt -- literally, physically, truly. 
 
(Btw, the above image comes from this Spin interview from 1993, wherein Evan and Juliana talk about a game they used to play when they lived together, called "Risky Purges," and then Evan tells Juliana she's a Waldorf salad. It's so good.) 


--Liz