Falling in love isn't the same as being in love. When we are falling in love everything feels possible, when we are in love we know that everything may not be possible but it doesn't matter because we will always have a place to feel safe. Paul McCartney wrote, "I've just seen a face" and its filled with the endless optimism that characterize his happier songs. McCartney was not my favorite Beatle, though he wrote almost all my favorite Beatles songs.
Nobody does falling in love quite like McCartney in this song. Right from the beginning of the song you know he's in love. He's seen a face and he's always going to remember when and where he was. And with one lyric he's captured something universal, eternal, and ephemeral. I can remember those first moments when I knew I was falling in love.
In the fourth grade, playing Atari with Danny in his room or playing G.I. JOE on his front yard. I didn't think I could be happier and I just knew I was falling in love. Of course, I was nine and I didn't know shit. By Jr. High I thought I was all grown up and falling in love with Jon as he played Bach on his guitar. In high school I could have listened to Roby's stories everyday and I was pretty sure my admiration of his talent was the same as love. When it turned out I was wrong, well I was sure I'd gotten it right when I met Devon with his linen shirts and his stoic sensibilities. He was reliable, sensible and just silly enough to make me laugh.
I fell in love with Devon so quickly that I can remember exactly what we were both wearing the night we met. Once we married, I felt my love for solidify like concrete around my feet. Although I was stable I was also suffocating in that relationship. And while the reasons we separated are complex, the love I felt for him remains. He's still a great friend.
Post separation, I was a woman on her own for the first time in over ten years. Falling for my next lover was like jumping of a cliff into the sea, it was fun, dangerous, and it hurt. When I finally started dating "Sunshine", a friend who I'd met in the last years of my marriage, I thought I'd finally met someone with whom I could enjoy the kind of friendship I shared with my ex-husband but combined with the passion I'd felt for my more recent ex. Perhaps I tried to get to close to the sun and like Icarus I had to fall back to earth. Because for a variety of reasons just saying that I was wrong about him, is a huge understatement.
Falling in love after my marriage has been different. I feel a lot more like the girl in Lennon's song "Happiness is a warm gun", lost in carnival like atmosphere where I've become acquainted with the kind of people who wear mirrors on their boots. Everywhere that seems safe isn't. I need love now in a way I never did before, I need to feel safe again. I've had love and safety and I want it back. I suppose this makes me needy.
I want to be loved the way McCartney loves the face of the woman he's just met. I want someone to fall in love with me so quickly and so passionately that I am the one who gets to be reasonable. I never get to be reasonable. I fall in love too easily to be reasonable. About 10 months ago, I started dating man. For the longest time I didn't know if I was in love with him, but I could always remember the shirt he was wearing the day we met.
This man I and I broke up about a month ago and I realize that its not the falling that will kill me, its the sudden stop at earth. McCartney's mysterious woman catches him so that even as he falls she is always calling him back. But that's why "I've Just Seen a Face" is the perfect song about falling in love; because its also a nearly perfect song about being in love. In real life, sometimes falling leads to being caught and other times it leads to a hitting the ground. Alone.
"I've Just Seen A Face"
I've just seen a face
I can't forget the time or place
Where we just meet
She's just the girl for me
And want all the world to see
We've met, mmm-mmm-mmm-m'mmm-mmm
Had it been another day
I might have looked the other way
And I'd have never been aware
But as it is I'll dream of her
Tonight, di-di-di-di'n'di
Falling, yes I am falling
And she keeps calling
Me back again
I have never known
The like of this, I've been alone
And I have missed things
And kept out of sight
But other girls were never quite
Like this, da-da-n'da-da'n'da
Falling, yes I am falling
And she keeps calling
Me back again
Falling, yes I am falling
And she keeps calling
Me back again
I've just seen a face
I can't forget the time or place
Where we just meet
She's just the girl for me
And want all the world to see
We've met, mmm-mmm-mmm-da-da-da
Falling, yes I am falling
And she keeps calling
Me back again
Falling, yes I am falling
And she keeps calling
Me back again
Oh, falling, yes I am falling
And she keeps calling
Me back again
I can't forget the time or place
Where we just meet
She's just the girl for me
And want all the world to see
We've met, mmm-mmm-mmm-m'mmm-mmm
Had it been another day
I might have looked the other way
And I'd have never been aware
But as it is I'll dream of her
Tonight, di-di-di-di'n'di
Falling, yes I am falling
And she keeps calling
Me back again
I have never known
The like of this, I've been alone
And I have missed things
And kept out of sight
But other girls were never quite
Like this, da-da-n'da-da'n'da
Falling, yes I am falling
And she keeps calling
Me back again
Falling, yes I am falling
And she keeps calling
Me back again
I've just seen a face
I can't forget the time or place
Where we just meet
She's just the girl for me
And want all the world to see
We've met, mmm-mmm-mmm-da-da-da
Falling, yes I am falling
And she keeps calling
Me back again
Falling, yes I am falling
And she keeps calling
Me back again
Oh, falling, yes I am falling
And she keeps calling
Me back again
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