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I Like You

by Matt Hickey

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about

For Jes. Inspired by the book "I Like You" by Sandol Stoddard Warburg and Jacqueline Chwast.

lyrics

I like you because I don’t know why I haven’t figured it out
But I know that everything is nicer with you
Oh I can’t remember ever not liking you
Oh I can’t remember ever not liking you

I’m a goofus on the roofus
Hollering my head off you’re one too
I never knew anyone as silly as you
I’m glad you think I’m funny cause I think I’m funny too
Oh I never met anyone as silly as you

I like you because
If I’m mad at you
Then you’re mad at me too
It’s awful when the other person isn’t mad at you.

I like you because
if we’re on a train, And I get lost
You’re the one that’s yelling my name.
And if I break my arm,
and you break yours too
Then having a broken arm is fine
You tell me about yours, I’ll tell you about mine

And I like you because
when I am feeling sad you don’t
always cheer me up right away.
Cause sometimes being sad is okay.

And I like you because
You like me too
And most importantly because
You like that I like you
Oh I can’t remember ever not liking you
Oh I can’t remember ever not liking you

credits

released September 14, 2019
This is the first song I wrote. My wife and I had recently married and she was living away in Texas supporting her father through a serious illness. At the time I worked as a children's librarian in Baltimore and stumbled upon the book "I Like You" by Sandol Stoddard Warburg and Jacqueline Chwast. I was immediately inspired to turn it into a song.

The guitar chords had been kicking around in my head for years, waiting for words that I knew would be for a love song. The book's simple sentences about affection and friendship were bluntly moving and felt parallel to me and my wife. I've known her since I was fifteen and we were friends long before I realized I loved her. Her birthday was coming up and I decided to write this song for her. I traveled down to see her on her birthday and at the end of the night I played her the recording.

What a miscalculation. Keeping a parent alive is emotional business and my song unleashed all of the feelings she was trying to set aside to focus on survival. So instead of the reaction I was expecting (which was: "Aw!") she cried a lot of tears and told me to turn it off like George C. Scott in Hardcore. I say this now understanding that the things we make for other people are often really for ourselves. I needed to write a song so I wrote one about her.

I'm still proud of it. This was the first time I realized you could start a song by writing the words that you wanted to sing. Every musician I knew had told me they started with music first and added words later or did both in some eruption of cathartic confession. I'm not that. This was the first time I gave myself permission to work this way. It might work for you, give it a try.

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Matt Hickey Houston, Texas

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