Come and Go

Come and Go is about the quietest way love dies. Not a fight, not a betrayal, not another person. Just two people who feel everything and say none of it, until the silence does the damage a scandal never could.

The whole record is built as a phone call after a row. She is on one end, he is on the other, and the chorus is the two of them talking past each other in real time:

I keep thinkin', never talkin'… and I hear it, but I stall. Got you here but I feel so alone… I'm right beside you, buildin' walls.

Read it again and notice: they are describing the exact same moment from two sides, and neither one can hear that the other feels it too. That is the tragedy in miniature. Not that they don't love each other, but that they both do, in the same breath, in total silence.

The two voices in their heads

What makes it hurt more is that neither of them is really alone on that call. They each brought a whole crowd of advice with them.

Her side is pride passed down from the women who raised her:

My girls always say, "if he wanted, he would." My mam said, "baby, never beg for your place," so I'm proud on the phone while the tears race my face.

His side is the armour handed down from the men:

The man dem always say, "bro, don't show her you're soft." My dad said, "hold it down, be a rock, be a man," but I'd trade all their advice just to get you right.

This is the deep part. The advice isn't wrong, exactly. "Never beg for your place" protects a woman from being taken for granted. "Be a rock" is what a boy gets told so he can survive. But layered over two people who are already scared, it becomes a script that stops them ever saying the simple thing: I'm still here, and I don't want to lose you. They are performing strength for an audience of people who aren't even on the call.

Pride as inherited trauma

Both of them are carrying something older than this relationship. She learned to protect herself by never asking. He learned to be loved only when he was strong. Those are survival tools, and they work, right up until the moment you actually need to be soft with someone. Then the same armour that kept you alive keeps you alone. The song calls it love and trauma in the same title on purpose.

That is why she stays "proud on the phone while the tears race" her face, two things at once, the surface and the truth. And why he builds walls while sitting right beside her. Neither is playing games. They are just protecting a wound with the only thing they were ever given.

The turn

The outro is the smallest, biggest line on the record:

Forget what they say… let's just say it ourselves.

That's it. That's the whole fix. Not a grand gesture, not a winning argument. Just two people finally clearing the room of everyone else's voices, the girls, the mandem, the mum, the dad, and deciding to speak for themselves for once. Whether it saves them, the song leaves open. But it names the one door out of the silence.

Why it stays with people

Nearly everyone has lived a version of this. The situationship that dissolved because nobody would define it. The relationship that ended over a story you told yourself about what they meant. The "I'm good" that meant the opposite. Come and Go puts that ache to music, not to solve it, but so you feel less alone inside it, and maybe pick up the phone and say the real thing before it becomes another one that got away.

The full lyrics

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