If I Had A Million Dollars

Sometime last year when I was at Brown, Chaz and Sarah and Nupur and Ben and other friends (Allegra? Margeaux? and one other whose name I forget, I think it started with a J, she played water polo) were hanging in Chaz's room. It was sort of small - actually, unusually small for a dorm room at Brown - but it never really felt cramped. It had a sunroof/moonroof/starroof above Chaz's bed in the corner, a futon/chair beside the bed, and his roommate's bed against the other wall. There was a little Ikea coffeetable in the middle that I "helped" Chaz put together during the first week we were there, and their desks were just about opposite their beds. I think this was the night of SexPowerGod, but I'm not sure.

In either case, Chaz had his computer - a white MacBook, I think - playing some music, and somehow when we were talking about music, we got to If I Had a Million Dollars, by The Barenaked Ladies. He said that he thought it was one of the prettiest songs he knew, and told us that sometime we should really listen to it - so we put it on right then.

If you're not familiar with the song If I Had a Million Dollars, you should be. The whole song is basically the two lead singers listing all the things they would buy for their girlfriend or wife if they had a million dollars, and each verse ends with "If I had a million dollars, I'd buy your love," before going into a chorus that lists more things they would buy for her so she would love him. And so we sat and really listened, and at the very end, Chaz said, "Oh, oh, this is the best part."

So I listened to the prolonged last line: "If I had a million dollars.... I'd be rich."

I'd listened to the song hundreds of times before, and I had always thought that it was just a pun. But for some reason when Chaz told me to listen to it, it completely changed the meaning. He wasn't talking about money at all; that's not the kind of rich he means.

I had actually momentarily forgotten the line as I was writing this post, and it didn't actually hit me until I wrote the line out just a moment ago, and when I did, it was strangely just as strong as the first time I realized what it really meant. And I remember the first time, Chaz and I just looked at each other, both feeling a little mushy and sentimental, and half-cried out, "It's so beautiful!" and hugged each other, non-ironically.

You should really listen to it sometime, maybe.

Peace out.