Impossible Love
The song Impossible Love plays a key role in my film Over-the-Rhine, as indeed it does in my life. Early in the movie, seventeen-year-old songwriter and drug addict Alec has a melody stuck in his head. He attempts to shape it into a conventional love song, but it refuses to bend.
Later, in the aftermath of a tragedy that Alec is largely responsible for, he realizes the song “isn’t about a girl,” and quickly finishes the lyrics in his jail cell. The novelization (which I’m currently working on) describes the moment this way:
He laughs at himself, and says aloud, “I’ll probably rewrite it again tomorrow.” But when he looks again at the opening line, the one he’s just changed for the eighteenth time, he knows it’s final, that he finally has it right. Because it’s finally true. It’s the truest thing he’s ever written.
The circumstances were different when I wrote the song, but like Alec I knew it was one of the truest and most personal things I’d ever written. Inspired by St. Augustine’s words, “Thou has made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee,” I wrote of my own longing for “a love that can never be broken.”
VERSE 1
Been looking for love that can never be broken
Impossible love that couldn’t exist
A love that can hear me when words are not spoken
That even my unfaithful heart can’t resist
BRIDGE
Maybe I’ll never know if I can find you
Or if you are even alive
But you are the one thing that I bind to
The reason that I can survive
CHORUS
I need you to light up these dark lonely halls
Need to know you know my innermost walls
Need you to live where I’ve wandered alone
Need you to make my heart into your home
VERSE 2
Well, I heard of a man who vanished completely
Had riches and power like an old king of Spain
But nobody whispered or spoke his name sweetly
In the end he was only a stain on the world
Repeat BRIDGE
CHORUS
I need you to light up these dark lonely halls
Need to know you know my innermost walls
Need you to live where I’ve wandered alone
Need you to make my heart into your home
≅
Impossible Love has been one of the audience’s favorite moments in the award-nominated score ever since Over-the-Rhine first screened at film festivals.
This recording was produced by the composer of Over-the-Rhine’s score, Steve Goers. The vocal is performed by Noah Berry.
Mitch this song is incredibly beautiful. Thank you for sharing it. ♥.
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Thank you so much, Niki.
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Beautiful song. You are incredibly talented!
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Aw, thank you!
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This song gave me goosebumps. My, is this beautiful, Mitch. Thank you so much for sharing.
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Bless you, Erika.
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Thank you, Mitch😊
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“…a love that can never be broken.” Indeed! How beautifully and lyrically expressed! You are a man of so may talents! Can’t wait to see the film!
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Thank you so much, Martha.
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Mitch, I am sincerely in awe of all the ways God has gifted you, and I am delightfully impressed with how passionately you have refined them, and how openly and extensively you use them… to thoroughly bless us all! May the Lord continue to bless you, Over-the-Rhine…and to use both for His purposes, honor and glory! 🙏🏻✝️
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Amen, and thank you, dear Dori.
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Love this quote by St. Augustine. Exactly what I needed to hear today 🙏🏻💗☺️
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I’m so pleased to hear that.
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I love the raw narration–raw in that it is so very real. Great work, Mitch. God bless!
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Thank you, Nancy.
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That made me happy. And happy I found your blog.
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Likewise, Angel.
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I love the words and the music. Thanks.
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Lovely!
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His grace surely touched you when you wrote that one.
a direct route to the soul. It is so beuatiful.
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Thank you, Sarah.
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Thank you for sharing… wonderfully written, beautifully sung, perfect music!
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Thank you.
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Beautiful! Only God can love us that way. I’m so glad I finally realize that!
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Amen!
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(Silence)
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I like both the song itself and the backstory.
Thanks for using the present tense in the eloquent paragraph from the novel in progress. While using the past tense makes sense for things like historical novels, much of the past tense usage in fiction is merely customary. The present tense is more vivid, as well as more comprehensible to people reading in a second language.
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Thanks, Barry. I’ve written in both, but liked the sense of immediacy that present tense gave this contemporary drug epidemic-set story.
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Love the song, Mitch!
I wrote a song a few years ago that is still my favorite, and if there is a scene where you need a song that showcases struggle and needing someone and wondering if this is what dying would be… I have that song and tune! Just sayin’ ;-)))
Can’t wait for the film to come out!
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Thanks, Kevin!
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This brings chills…so beautiful! ❤
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Thank you, Lynn.
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Love this song -love what it means -the message it portrays. When the film comes out how will we get access to it please?
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I’ll definitely keep my readers posted. And thank you.
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