I’ll never forget the first time that I heard the song “Does She Love That Man?” by Breathe. In was one of the most painful holiday seasons ever for as I was suffering the immense anguish of heartbreak from a major breakup with some I truly loved. It’s never easy when you have your heart broken but to experience during the holidays adds insult to injury because it’s truly is the most wonderful time of the year. While you’re licking your wounds and try to make sense of it all, you have to endure all of the happy and romantic couples that seemingly appear everywhere you go.

Well, this one night in December I flipped the channel to the Joan Rivers Show, yes, she had a talk show back then. She introduced Breathe which was one of my favorite artists thanks to songs such as “Hands to Heaven” and “How Can I Fall”. So I prepared to enjoy a live performance from the british band and I noticed something strange. The lead singer David Glasper had an extremely short hair cut, almost like it was shaved for some reason. What provoked this handsome bloke to do this to himself?

Then the song began and it started to make sense. It also started to rip my already shattered heart out. The song was all about a man dealing with the torture of breaking up with the love of his life during the holidays and to make things worse he actually runs into her with her new man!

The music and lyrics were beautiful and powerful but the performance the lead singer gave that night was unforgettable. All singers are performers but this guy was baring his soul for all the world to see. I don’t know if this song was actually auto-biographical or if he was just getting into the song but it sure looked and felt like it was. I think his commitment to the experience and my own personal heartbreak resulted in me in tears that I’d been resisting for the longest time. The floodgates were open and I didn’t mind. As a matter of fact, it felt great and ultra cathartic. The song actually began a healing process for me.

The emotions climaxed in this part of the song:
The waitress talked to me, but I could not hear her words at all
The only sound that I could hear was the screaming of my soul
My world revolved around one single thing I wish to know
Does she love that man?

I don’t think I’ll ever see that live performance from Breathe that night on the Joan Rivers Show but I was thrilled to finally find the official music video for the song which has never appeared anywhere online in all the years that I’ve checked until now. So, here’s the video followed by the lyrics.

Here are the heartbreaking lyrics

DOES SHE LOVE THAT MAN?

Endlessly walking through a winter that’s so bitterly cold
Christmas is coming all the stores are wrapped in their neon glow
But I don’t feel festive
Oh I’ve lost the woman I held so dear
I’m so reflective as I think of all our happy years
I brush against a stranger,
So I turn to apologize
And I saw her, with another man, and a sparkle in her eyes
Does she love that man?
The way that I’m loving her still
Does she love that man?
For she has broken my will to survive
I walked to a cafe where I sat and stared at an empty wall
The waitress talked to me, but I could not hear her words at all
The only sound that I could hear was the screaming of my soul
My world revolved around one single thing I wish to know
Does she love that man?
The way that I’m loving her still
Does she love that man?
For she has broken my will to survive
The weather was changing, snow began falling
The sky became dark like the mood of my heart
I watched all the lovers
Sharing together, their smiles and laughter were painful reminders
I seem to recapture the moment I held her
I made her swear that she’d always be there
But she left me sorrow and fear of tomorrow
As soon as I wake there’s a pain I can’t shake in my heart
Does she love that man?
The way that I’m loving her still
Does she love that man?
For she has broken my will
Does she love that man?
The way that I’m loving her still
Does she love that man?
For she has broken my will
Does she love him?
Does she love him?
Does she love that man?

I became transfixed with Anna Nalik’s “Breathe (2 AM)” song for the first time during a Grey’s Anatomy episode (one of my fave TV shows its first two seasons anyway). The voice and the lyrics just hypnotized me. I quickly found out who it was and enjoyed the full song and then music video.

My favorite passages of the song are regarding the writing process and how naked the writer feels as we share ourselves to the crowd. She captures the feeling so well. It’s so true too. Once we capture our thoughts and emotions with words and share them with the world they are no longer our’s and people will use our words any way they want to which is wonderful.

BREATHE (2 AM)

2 AM and she calls me ’cause I’m still awake,
can you help me unravel my latest mistake,
I don’t love him, winter just wasn’t my season
Yeah we walk through the doors, so accusing their eyes
Like they have any right at all to criticize,
hypocrites, you’re all here for the very same reason
‘Cause you can’t jump the track,we’re like cars on a cable
and life’s like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button girl,
So cradle your head in your hands
And breathe, just breathe,
Woah breathe, just breathe
May he turn 21 on the base at Fort Bliss
Just today he sat down to the flask in his fist,

Ain’t been sober, since maybe October of last year.
Here in town you can tell he’s been down for a while,
But my God it’s so beautiful when the boy smiles,
Wanna hold him, maybe I’ll just sing about it.
Cause you can’t jump the track, we’re like cars on a cable,
And life’s like an hourglass, glued to the table.
No one can find the rewind button boys,
So cradle your head in your hands,

And breathe, just breathe,
Woah breathe, just breathe
There’s a light at each end of this tunnel, you shout
‘Cause you’re just as far in as you’ll ever be out
These mistakes you’ve made, you’ll just make them again
If you only try turning around.

2 AM and I’m still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, its no longer
inside of me, threatening the life it belongs to
And i feel like I’m naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you’ll use them, however you want to
But you can’t jump the track, we’re like cars on a cable,
And life’s like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button now
Sing it if you understand.
and breathe, just breathe
woah breathe, just breathe,
oh breathe, just breathe.
oh breathe,just breathe