"Love Ain't Nothin' More Than Black Magic"

You better want what you wish for

I am obsessed with the metaphors to love and lyric choices in ‘Black Magic’ by Ruston Kelly. Not surprising as he has written songs for some of the most legendary country artists in the game. The first lyric chants “Halloween is here with me” which prioritized this post to land today. I also love the witchiness that this song evokes.

Most who know me well know that I love LOVE. My soul seeks it out and feels it to the ultimate depths. However, this year produced moments that needed a dark song about love. One with a roll the windows down, sing at the top of your lungs with a big middle finger up in the air vibe. This song is everything when you are in disillusioned with love.  

I had truly thought that I had manifested the ultimate love. The “love of my life”. ‘Black Magic’ warns ‘You better want what you wish for, It might happen’. I had wanted a family. I had wanted a deep and forever, aligned love. I had wanted all the things my past partner portrayed and promised me. It had “happened”. However, I didn’t realize that I had fallen under the spell of love bombing and many other circumstances that would ultimately leave me disillusioned with love. I had no idea what love bombing was until I was on the other side of the turmoil that follows a love bomber.  Verywellmind’s definition is as follows “Love bombing is a tactic in which someone “bombs” you with extreme displays of attention and affection with the intent to manipulate you. Although being showered with "love" can seem positive at the beginning of a romantic relationship, love bombing can lead to gaslighting and abuse.” And so, hours, if not days and months, of contemplating a past relationship lead me to write this post.  

This song helped me release the anger and pain that I had endured during and after that love bombing relationship. The lyrics becoming metaphors for the relationship I had lived through.  

Love Bombing = ‘Fell under your spell’

Blind Trust = ‘I drank your poison’

Slowly losing my voice= ‘I found the words to say, but they just blister on my tongue’

The result of using my voice = ‘Day awakes the night and then I die for what I’ve done’

The dopamine and cortisol evoked cycle = ‘Blood that won’t stop running, ‘cause this wound won’t ever clot’

My intuition I ignored = ‘Like the ringing in my ears, that don’t ever seem to stop’

Pain that took my breath away = ‘Asphyxiating slow below an ugly setting sun’

Early in my healing journey my life coach expressed “I know that you think you were able to love SO big and deep because of him. But the reality is that you were able to love SO big and deep because of YOU. YOU have that love in you. You brought that to the relationship and you are taking it with you.” It was the moment I knew that this relationship was “Where I sold my hallelujah, when I laid my soul in” a person unworthy of my heart.

Ruston Kelly told American Songwriter magazine about the song “This song is an attempt to understand the devil in the wrong kind of love, an absorption into weaker parts of yourself that, by some bewitching force leave you drained and filled by blackness.”  While I might argue that loving someone wholly does not make you weak, I would agree that not everyone will handle your love/heart with care or consideration. Having a higher emotional pain tolerance may have created a situation where, in the end, my heart was filled with blackness. However, I know I was intentionally born to love BIG. I will always know that love can be found at the highest peaks as well as in the mundane. Love can be “hell” and while I’m past living in that belief, I have to thank Ruston Kelly for producing a track to keep me company while cursing the day love was ever created.

What songs do you listen to when you are angry with love?

If called to engage in my journey of tying life’s experiences to music, please comment on this post, subscribe to this substack or follow me @allysmelodymusicblog.