P!nk: "Try" and "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I can't say that I'm a huge P!nk (Pink) fan, or even that much of a fan at all, but I certainly respect her as an artist and like quite a few of her songs a great deal. (Yes, I'm an enormous Pink Floyd fan who has some appreciation for P!nk. Yes, I have eclectic tastes.)

Songs like "Fuckin' Perfect," which until just recently I thought was her best.

Until, that is, I listened to her most recent album, The Truth About Love (released on September 14), and encountered "Try," which now I consider to be, if I may say so, fuckin' brilliant, not least the chorus, which is exceptional in its lyrical composition:

Where there is desire there is gonna be a flame

Where there is a flame someone's bound to get burned

But just because it burns doesn't mean you're gonna die

You gotta get up and try, try, try

Gotta get up and try, try, try

Gotta get up and try, try, try

Call me a romantic, but that just works for me, over and over again, particularly the way she sings it, combining determination and vulnerability, the combination that has always defined her and that she is now expressing with greater maturity, and less aggression, than ever before.

Another great song on the album, and my second favorite, is "Timebomb," but I can't find a good clip. So let's go with the first single off the album ("Try" being the second), "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)", which I also like a great deal (and which she performed on The Daily Show last Wednesday).

Here she is performing "Try" and "Blow Me (One Last Kiss) in L.A.

What can I say? She's really good.