That’s Enough
From I'm Still Here
That’s Enough
After ‘It’s in Me Too’ stripped away the last of the self-protective instincts, ‘That’s Enough’ arrives as the album’s earned exhale. Rose has always been good at writing around a hard feeling instead of through it, but here he goes straight through, and it holds. The lyric refuses every comfortable lie the genre usually offers: not ‘wiser for the damage,’ not ‘unbroken,’ just ‘here, and not ashamed,’ which is a harder and more honest landing than most writers would dare. The song runs at a brisk pace for the subject matter, but the production earns it, opening spare and close-miked before the chorus fills out with layered guitars and what sounds like strings lifting the back half. That final pass through the chorus, where ‘pretending nothing changed’ shifts to ‘pretending you were spared,’ is the kind of small revision that rewards close listeners. As the penultimate track, it does not try to summarize or resolve the album’s concerns; it simply demonstrates that Rose has arrived somewhere real. The closer has room to speak because this one did the last of the hard work.
Lyrics
All right Here we are
I don't need the old excuses Don't need "still young at heart" Don't need every loss repainted As some secret work of art Some things hurt and stay that way Some things leave and don't come back But I can stand inside that knowledge Without disappearing in it
There's a way to hold your head up Without pretending nothing changed There's a way to tell the truth And still remain yourself Not untouched Not above it Not somehow wiser for the damage Just here, in my own name That's enough
I don't need to win against time That was never mine to do I just need to stop arguing With what the mirror says now I have less ahead than I had once More behind than I can hold But I don't have to lie to stand up straight I can do that honest
There's a way to hold your head up Without pretending nothing changed There's a way to tell the truth And still remain yourself Not untouched Not above it Not somehow wiser for the damage Just here, in my own name That's enough
Maybe dignity is smaller Than the word once made it sound Maybe it's just staying human When everything gets fully seen (fully seen)
There's a way to hold your head up Without pretending you were spared There's a way to keep standing there Without insisting you're the same Not unbroken Not beyond it Not immune to any of this Just here, and not ashamed That's enough
That's enough Yeah That's enough