5. It’s Understandable: Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters”

“It’s understandable.” Doesn’t the phrase sound amazing? It can make you feel seen and heard. Join the ultimate ’90s nostalgia party as Elaina shares birthday memories, including one involving a singing telegram gorilla. She reflects on the joy of understanding shared with friends, highlighting her connection with PC (Producer Cheris). Exploring the significance of inside jokes, she draws parallels between understanding in relationships and the connection felt through ’90s music. Elaina rediscovers Metallica's righteous head-banging ballad "Nothing Else Matters" on a ’90s mix CD, diving into the lyrics that resonate with the theme of understanding and connection. Drawing life lessons from Spider-Man movies and Harry Potter, Elaina encourages you to embrace emotional depth and connect with others through the power of righteous ’90s rock – and understanding.

Thanks for listening, and don't forget to shine bright!

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About the host: Elaina Satti is a lover of the '90s living in Rhode Island, USA, the smallest state with the biggest heart, and she is in fact a divorced single parent living her best "now what?" exploring the journey of "what's next" – with coffee.

Transcript

Hey, this is Elaina with “Your '90s Are Showing.” I'm here, you're here. It's a '90s party, the best kind of '90s party. And thank you again for joining and listening. I want to talk to you about, you know, my birthday coming up, hey, let's start out of the gate, right? As my dad says, Let's not talk about me, what do you think about me? Um, no, I have a birthday coming up. And I want to talk about the theme of understanding. It's an often misunderstood term, right? It's understanding can be misunderstood. But with my birthday, I remember when I was 14 years old, back in the '90s, my friend Lauren got me a singing gorilla. So I open up the door. And there it is, it's dancing. Someone dressed in a gorilla suit. It's got a little pink hat on. And it's singing happy birthday. And I was cracking up, I was basically on the floor. I have no idea to this day, why she did it. But she knew that it would be a source of absolute hilarity and delight for me for years to come. And that's what we have right with these people in our lives. We have these inside jokes of understanding. I mean, don't get me started with PC, PC formerly known as a Producer Cheris, we just have to look at each other sometimes. And we crack up because we have those inside jokes, right? We have the King of the Hill inside jokes like “A sack, I'd rather put my stuff in a sack,” right?, when Hank is better at Dale at making baskets in basket weaving camp, something like that. And, the basket weaving people are like “Gribble, Gribble is terrible at making baskets. I'd rather put my stuff in a sack – a sack!” So we have a ton of inside jokes like that, Cheris and I can just look at each other. And you have those people in your life, right? My friend Lorraine and I, we have this phrase that my dad would say, time is your friend. And she actually drew me this beautiful sketch of sand running through an hourglass to illustrate time is your friend. So we have these people in the '90s, right? You had the people that would just know by looking at you that you were trying to hold it together because you were going to burst out laughing whether it was the most inappropriate time or not. It didn't matter. It was going to happen. And I remember yearbooks, right, in the '90s, they had a class will section where you could leave quote unquote, different, you know, inside phrases and jokes and inside insights, right? That only the two of you knew. And mine were invariably the longest. I remember in junior and senior year. And you know, God bless my friends, they were probably like, what the hell is Elaina talking about, you know, like, I would just go on and on and on. Because I had these things with people that only they knew. And I'm very one on one, I'm relational like that I'm an INFJ. And so they meant so much. And when someone looks at you, and they understand, it's incredible. There's really nothing like it.

Inside Jokes are priceless, the things that nobody else can know. But you and that person, and it feels like you have this language together with them. And you know, there is someone in my life who I'm blessed to know. And that person says to me, it's understandable when I'm going through something and when I really know, right, it's not understandable. And I bring it to that person. And that person's just like, You know what, it's understandable. And I know at that moment, okay, it might not be so understandable. But they're willing to extend that grace to me. And I feel like my entire nervous system relaxes at that moment. And even when I say that phrase, right, my daughter's telling me about a terrible day at school, my younger daughter is just very emotive. And there's a lot of emotions that come out. And she recently said to me, how can I feel all these emotions at once? And when I say something to her, like, I know that's understandable.

You can just see her shoulders visibly relaxed, and the tension in her face starts to melt away. And I think what an incredible gift to give to someone else is the gift of saying it's understandable. And it's not something that a lot of people know. And it's so powerful. And I feel like in the '90s we had those touch points. And a lot of it was through music that when we hear those songs today, it's like that song understands us, and we have that gateway into the feeling of being understood. 

Now let me tell you, the '90s triumphs when today's technology is a hot mess. And so I got a new phone right and as one does you transfer all the stuff over and I'm always like having a, How do you say that word, apocalyptic fit? Is that the way you say it? Because I always think that I'm going to lose some precious photos or something is going to be lost in translation, right? Talk about lost in translation, and it went perfectly. But I do feel like there was that moment of wait, is everything going to be transferred over. But then it was perfect only for me to find out that my car and my phone were not syncing together, right? They were not simpatico, they were not in sync. So I can't play anything from my phone right, first world problems, high class problems in my car, but I being the '90s Maven that I am traveling around with just the case of ’90s CDs, I probably have about 50 in there. And that's only one CD case because yes, I still am that person who has CDs and the ’90s CDs that I burned once upon a time. And so here I am driving back, I had to go to a family event. And I'm listening to the '90s. I'm listening to the entire CD of Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream. I'm listening to mix CDs that I made with Tori Amos and Pearl Jam, and Temple of the Dog and throw in a little SWV in there. And old school Mariah and Foo Fighters and I'm just happy as a little clam. And there was one song that came on I have not probably heard for at least a good 20 years and it took me back, it took me back to the '90s and that song is by Metallica. It's from the self-titled album Metallica from 1991 and that song is “Nothing Else Matters.” And I was playing and you know, it's just such a rich ballad, right? It's a Metallica ballad, it's not the headbanging display, you know of brilliance that I believe “Enter Sandman” was, it was showing the gentler side of Metallica and it was something that played on 94 HJY, the home of rock'n'roll back in the day, and I put it on that CD for a reason because I remembered how much I loved it. And it came back to me and I want to read you some of the lyrics to “Nothing Else Matters.” And I want you to picture this person in your life. Or maybe you're blessed to have several but the person who has understood you in a portion of your life. And I want you to think about that person. The lyrics say:

“So close, no matter how far/ Couldn't be that much more from the heart. Forever trusting who we are. And nothing else matters. Never opened myself this way. Life is ours. We live it our way. Know these words. I don't just say, and nothing else matters.” This is my favorite right here, y'all. “Trust I seek and I find in you every day for us something new, open minds for a different view. And nothing else matters. Never cared for what they do. Never cared for what they know. But I know. But I know.”

And then it goes on to say “I never opened myself this way. Life is ours. We live it our way. All these words. I don't just say and nothing else matters.”

I think in my life, I want to aspire to be that person who understands another person, the person who says to that person, it's understandable. You know, I think of that scene. You know? I'm watching the Spiderman with Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst as MJ and Toby as as Peter Parker and of course I love it because it has one of them has this song hero by Nickelback, which is just, you know, I was Nickelback meme-ing before it was a thing. And love me some Nickelback though they are more a 200’s band. And those Spiderman movies have to be over 20 years old now. And I'm watching them with my youngest daughter and they are absolutely priceless. They're really great movies. So I'm watching the first one. And after the Green Goblin attacks Aunt May, she overhears Peter Parker talking to his unrequited love MJ in the hospital room. They have the conversation and MJ is trying to get him to admit that he really loves her. And he is just explaining, you know, I told Spiderman, (which is really him) about how when you walk in the room, and you see Mary Jane for the first time, there's nobody else in the room, and he's going on to explain what it is like just to catch a glimpse of her and when she looks at you, and you can tell Mary Jane is looking back at him, and there's so much that's unspoken between them.

And he can't say, I’m the one who loves you, right? I'm the one that loves you because he wants to protect Mary Jane. And he can't let her know his secret identity because he doesn't want to put her at risk. So when she finally leaves, and of course, Peter Parker, his eyes are so filled with longing, right? Tobey Maguire with those huge, huge eyes. Aunt May turns to him, and he realizes that she has been listening the whole time. And basically, she says, Peter, you can't keep things inside. You can't keep your emotions inside bottled up like that; they're going to explode out. Your feelings for Mary Jane are going to come out. You can't keep them. You can't keep them all bottled up. 

And so when my daughter says things like, you know, “How can anyone feel all these emotions at once,” Like, the way that Cho Chang feels when she kisses Harry, Harry Potter in the Room of Requirement at Christmas time under the mistletoe. And she's crying at the same time. And then later on Harry explains to Ron and Hermione the fact that he kissed Cho Chang but it was wet because she was crying. And Hermione gets it, she says, yeah, it's because she's behind in her studies. And she is missing Cedric Diggory, her old boyfriend who was killed by Voldermort. And she feels guilty for liking Harry, but she likes Harry so much, and her mom's in trouble at the Ministry of Magic. And then Ron basically turns to them and says:

“How can one person feel all that?” She says, “just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon.” And they all start laughing. And we all have this capacity to feel. And I really believe that when we extend to one another, that gift of things being understandable that another person can really understand where we're coming from, that's where a lot of magic in this life happens.

“Life is ours, we live it our way. Know these words, I don't just say, and nothing else matters. Trust I seek and I find in you every day for us something new, open minds for a different view. And nothing else matters.” I wonder if the lads from Metallica realize that as they go along open minds for a different view. And offering up that understanding, you know,

as hard as they rock, and as hard as we rock – And we rock who we love the '90s we know how to rock, we can rock and also unleash that understanding. And it can be our superpower, not just like Spiderman. But that gift of understanding can be like our superpower that we unleash to the world. So go forth. And let that understanding be something that you bring to the table and watch how it melts the hearts. And it releases the tension for yourself, right? Because we have things in our past that we don't want to think about sometimes. Can we offer that same grace and that sense of it's understandable to ourselves as well? I hope that we can do that. And I thank the lads of Metallica for showing us the way. So thanks so much for listening. And as always, thanks for going down the waterslide with me. This has been Elaina with “Your '90s Are Showing” and I hope you listen next time!