“If you wanna call me, call me, call me / You don’t have to worry ‘bout it, baby / You can wake me up in the dead of night / Wreck my plans, baby, that’s all right.”
No, Luke Bryan, it’s not all right.
The first time I heard that song, I laughed out loud. It wasn’t a bitter laugh, but more of a shocked, “Are ya kidding?” snort. There are few things I value more than sleep, so the idea of tolerating – much less welcoming – an interruption is downright laughable.
Yet it seems most moderately successful songs include 4 a.m. declarations of love or middle-of-the-night phone calls, and country artists aren’t the only ones to blame.
There’s Maroon 5’s 2011 hit “Never Gonna Leave This Bed,” in which Adam Levine proudly proclaims, “Wake you up / In the middle of the night to say / I will never walk away again.”
Going back a ways, you’ve got Soul Asylum’s “Runaway Train”: “Call you up in the middle of the night / Like a firefly without a light.”
And, of course, the Eagles’ legendary “Hotel California”: “And still those voices are calling from far away / Wake you up in the middle of the night / Just to hear them say / Welcome to the Hotel California.”
I understand that love, at its best and at its worst, can cause insomnia. That can’t-eat, can’t-sleep, reach-for-the-stars, over-the-fence, World Series kind of love, as Mary-Kate Olsen would say.
(I can’t speak from personal experience – not because I’ve never been in love, but because I’ve never not been tired.)
However, if you cared about a person at all, you wouldn’t make your inability to sleep a shared problem.
Eat a gallon of Chubby Hubby, watch Jack LaLanne juicer infomercials, form an online gambling addiction – anything is better than waking up your partner at 2 in the morning for no reason at all. Best-case scenario: Your partner is confused and irritated. Worst-case scenario: They think the house is on fire.
I know that when I get middle-of-the-night phone calls, I assume someone is dead, dying or stuck at a seedy bar in Edinboro. Those are the only scenarios that require my immediate attention. You can wait until morning to proclaim your love or welcome me to Hotel California.
I guess I am being a tad cynical. If you want to call your significant other because you can’t go another moment without hearing their voice, go for it. Life is short, right? Assuming you’re with the sort of person who appreciates that sort of thing, they’ll love you even more for doing so.
Still, you should absolutely not, under any circumstances, call someone simply because you’re lonely. It’s demeaning to the person on the other end of the line, and it won’t solve your problem in the long run. Instead, break out the Chubby Hubby and watch Jack LaLanne purée apples.
APRIL SHERNISKY
