Outlaws of Love – My Broken Open

by Jesha84, re-posted with permission

I remember when Adam Lambert’s debut album “For Your Entertainment” was released. On it was a song that Adam had written himself called “Broken Open”. This beautiful song hit so many people to their core and brought tears to many eyes. Hearing him sing it live took the impact of the song to a whole new level, and when Adam first performed a soft and gentle version of it at Fantasy Springs in February 2010, it was song to pull at heartstrings.

I love “Broken Open”. It truly is a lovely song with a comforting message, an invitation to fall apart and let out the demons that reside within us, and to have the perfection that is Adam’s voice deliver it flawlessly sends chills down my spine. But I will be honest: I have never cried listening to it, and it’s not my favorite song on the album. Oh I was not unaffected, not at all, but not to the emotional point that so many of his fans were.

My friends, I have found my “Broken Open”.

This Friday night Adam premiered a brand new song to appear on his upcoming album. Entitled “Outlaws of Love”, the song is a message about acceptance and how no matter where you go there always seems to be someone who’s out to make you feel like you’re “running from the law.”

It’s been a day and a half since it was released but I feel like I’ve been listening to it for my whole life. I have no words for this song. Or rather, I have many words, but they all fall so far short of what I want to convey that they do more of a disservice to it. This song has crushed me and left me so emotional that just the thought of the opening notes steals my voice and makes my chest tighten as I try to fight tears. I woke up this morning to Adam’s voice in my head and throat working to fight sobs. To try to describe what I feel and what brings me there is like trying to describe colors to someone who’s been blind from birth.

The lyrics… oh, the lyrics. Almost frightening in their power and simplicity. Adam wasn’t lying when he said his sophomore effort would be more personal. Adam’s heart is on full display here, and to see that such a beautiful, happy individual can create such a devastatingly grief-stricken song is perhaps more shattering than the song itself. One wonders how many nights he sat despondent, or how many tears slipped from those blue eyes, or how many times the burden became overwhelming and too much to carry….

Oh, nowhere left to go
Are we getting closer, closer
No, all we know is no
Nights are getting colder, colder
Hey, tears all fall the same
We all feel the rain
We can’t change

Everywhere we go we’re looking for the sun
Nowhere to grow old we’re always on the run
They say we’ll rot in hell
Well I don’t think we will
They’ve branded us enough
Outlaws of love

Scars make us who we are
Hearts and homes are broken, broken
Far, we could go so far
With our minds wide open, open
Hey, tears all fall the same
We all feel the rain
We can’t change

Everywhere we go we’re looking for the sun
Nowhere to grow old we’re always on the run
They say we’ll rot in hell
Well I don’t think we will
They’ve branded us enough
Outlaws of love

The second verse destroyed me… Scars make us who we are, hearts and homes are broken, broken… and all I could think of were victims of abuse who have been beaten down and have had to lock themselves away for the purpose of self-preservation. Personally knowing people who have been there, I could see their faces and the people that they have become, lives shaped and molded because of those who held such power over them.

But I also thought about my best friend and her soon-to-be fiancé. They’re an interracial couple – he’s white, she’s black – and two of the most beautiful people I know. I thought about how she will sometimes tell me that they get looks as they walk hand-in-hand, like they don’t belong together, and that even people close to them haven’t been supportive of their relationship. Everywhere we go we’re looking for the sun; Nowhere to grow old we’re always on the run; They say we’ll rot in hell; Well I don’t think we will; They’ve branded us enough; Outlaws of love…. It hurts me to hear her say those things because it shouldn’t matter, and yet, even in 2011, to some people, it does.

The thing that affects me the most, however, is Adam’s voice. I pray this song on the album sounds just like it did on the stage, because its lack of production and embellishment enhances the power of the lyrics, but more importantly, keeps the focus first and foremost on the voice. And Adam’s voice, the perfect and unblemished instrument that it is, wraps around us and seeps through our pores and moves through our veins to settle heavy in our hearts, making us feel the quiet suffering of the lyrics is our own personal burden under which to struggle. Gentle, measured, it moves smoothly and gracefully higher, lower, slips into a falsetto and back, ends with a brief glimpse of strength and power and revolt against the unfairness of the world before softening, going back to the acceptance of what looks to never change. And at the end, we’re left speechless, struggling to find breath and strength, wondering whether we will ever see sunlight again now that we realize the rain has been falling for so long.

Like so many, I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve listened to “Outlaws of Love”, and I keep going back knowing my heart will die a little more each time. It’s impossible to forgo hearing it and being moved to the depths of our being. It’s a song to shatter hearts, to shed light on pain, to draw strength among the languishing words. It’s a song to be relived more times than we can find minutes for.

It’s a glimpse into what promises to be a powerful, stunning collection of music from Adam.

Original posted at Jesha84’s Live Journal