I Can’t Make You Love Me– Bonnie Raitt 

It was the summer of 1991. My wife and I had been married for almost 8 years. One evening in June, we were having a really difficult time communicating, which was odd to me because we had always gotten along famously. We were lying in bed and I was trying to figure out what the difficulty was. So I thought I’d start with the most outrageous question I could possibly think of, figuring that it could not possibly be that. Once the worst was out of the way, so went the theory, I thought we could work back from there. The outrageous question, which couldn’t possibly have a yes answer, was: Are you having an affair?  

To my utter shock, she said yes. 

Gut punch. I said I could forgive that. But over the next few months it became clear that things were not, at that particular time, going to work out for us. I went through the emotional roller-coaster that accompanies a breakup, and as I was going through it, this song pretty much said what I felt. I don’t know if I had ever, up until that point, identified so thoroughly with a song. But I did with that one.  

I would listen and bawl. 

Here are the lyrics: 

Verse 1: 
Turn down the lights 
Turn down the bed 
Turn down these voices inside my head 
Lay down with me 
Tell me no lies 
Just hold me close, don’t patronize 
Don’t patronize me 

Chorus: 
‘Cause I can’t make you love me if you don’t 
You can’t make your heart feel something it won’t 
Here in the dark, in these final hours 
I will lay down my heart and I’ll feel the power 
But you won’t, no you won’t 
‘Cause I can’t make you love me, if you don’t 

Verse 2: 
I’ll close my eyes, then I won’t see 
The love you don’t feel when you’re holding me 
Morning will come and I’ll do what’s right 
Just give me till then to give up this fight 
And I will give up this fight 

Chorus: