Somebody That I Used To Know

It's common for people who have abandonment and betrayal issues to focus on the temporary nature of relationships and have an innate inability to trust. Lovers like this (Gotye) often, even in the early and middle stages of relationship, convince themselves they don't need anyone or anything or any love as demonstrated in the lyrics "i guess i don't need that though" and "I don't even need your love."

For these people, the act of loving someone actually hurts, not generally associated with pleasure -- as in "that was love and it's an ache I still remember" -- because of what it inevitably leads to: being hurt and left behind. They associate love directly with pain and they turn off or away from the beloved after brief glimpses of love, intimacy and closeness.

But the attachments are still attachments -- the needs ARE real -- and when the attachments are broken they feel alienated even when they are in agreement it's not working. The protest phase begins...lashing out...blaming... demonstrated by the raised voice in the chorus blaming "you didn't have to cut me off... you didn't have to stoop so low..." (you, you, you...) In the video, notice how the volume of singing is quieter and more revealing and emotionally tender and honest when the lover is naked and alone and he gets louder when he is in her presence, camouflaged and "safe?" He doesn't even look at her when he's singing his protest. His body is rigid. This is genuine fear.

The beloved's (Kimbra's) voice points out the experience of the beloved being blamed for actions that represented previous loss and feeling set up for failure. In the video, notice how the beloved's voice is softer when she's camouflaged, her face is NEVER camouflaged and she is able to look at him. Her body is fluid when it moves. She speaks her truth with poignancy and courage. She's able to say what she wants, "I don't wanna live that way,""Reading into every word you say" and being confused with what damage she caused and what was residual from the past, "had me believing it was always something that I'd done." She clearly has tried to connect and is frustrated by the wall of ridgity and blame she's faced with.

They both have a certain manner of "hiding" to do from one another; these passionate emotions are dangerous and vulnerable. I think the lover is the more damaged of the two. The beloved stands up for herself, is able to walk away. He can't by virtue of it being mostly his song. He's hanging on imaginatively because imaginary, former, lamented relationships are safer than real, challenging current ones. He is called out by his beloved's experience with him being unable to let go of others that he "used to know" in the lyrics "You said that you could let it go / And I wouldn't catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know..."

I think it's interesting that the camouflage is gold, silver and bronze and green and filled with sharp edges. That which we find the most valuable and soft of metals should have such sharp, painful corners. Green symbolizes life. The lover has no green in his camouflage, but his eyes are BRIGHT green. The lover has some green; her eyes are dark. (She's partially healthy). And the lines in the artwork are tiny chains (symbol of burdensome attachment and prison -- how love can imprison us.)

"Somebody i used to know" also is demonstrative of the idea that people are always undergoing change. You may know them now, but you may not know them later...bc the ties to sharing intimate information and experiences has passed.

This song and video both illustrate how relationships in the Western cultures tend to have a certain solidarity and finiteness to them (a concept with more "sharp edges") and we might see this song, because the experience in it is so painful, to look for opportunities to take better care of one another, even as our relationships grow and change...and to take a bit more responsibility for those we love, to move with more fluidity and grace through life and love.

The big question is "how?"