I Don't Know Why You Still Love Him

A Protest Song

Published on Medium aokidiane.medium.com/i-dont-know-why-you-still-love-him-7c63545c4361

Story Behind the Song

I have a friend who was writing lyrics to old songs as a way to vent her anxiety about our current political situation. She shared the lyrics on Facebook a while back — maybe 2 months ago. That inspired me to write this one. I had written this song in 2015 as a broken-hearted love song, (I Told A Man I Loved Him) which I never shared except at a songwriting workshop at the Hawaii Songwriting Festival. I used the same melody for this song, so I didn’t have to work out a new tune, and the words came easily.

I had taken classical guitar lessons in college many moons ago. Once when I was low on money, and out of frustration for my skills, I sold my guitar. I finally replaced it when I was in Baja Mexico in 2000, where I bought a small guitar (size of a big ukulele) for about $30. I’d been practicing noncommittally over the years. In the pandemic, I decided to re-learn guitar. so I took a class from Great Courses, then signed up for a free 3-month trial from Fender.

When I wrote this song, it was with the intention to share it as part of the movement to vote Trump out. But I just could not get to the point of mastery and time was running out, so I made the decision — mistakes and all — just post it. So today, I posted on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. My hope is that I will have some musician friends — at least 1 — who will learn it and share it. I really never wanted to be a performer, but I do want to be a songwriter. I realized early on in my songwriting journey that I would need to have some kind of performing skills in order to share. So, I’ve been working on that. In fact, I set my writing aside for a while in order to put in my practice time for this.

Here it is. Mistakes and all. For what it’s worth. MUSICIANS! If you would like to learn it, sing it, share it, please do, I’d be honored. Just credit me somewhere.

​Link to YouTube Video