Another melancholy song of love and loss; I’m not sure why I’m in the mood for this kind of music today, but it doesn’t reflect any deeper emotional trauma as far as I know. What appeals to me about “Hate It Here” is likely a cultural thing that wasn’t intended. It sounds, for want of a better way to put it, like a AOR song that belongs in the 1970s, what with the electric piano and the guitar lines, and that – just like “If We Were Words,” for that matter – makes the lyrics seem more out of place, until you get to the chorus, when the song shifts gears like a bizarro “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” and starts grinding in what feels to me like comedic self-flagellation.
The mundane details of what’s “missing” throughout the song appeal, as well; not just because it’s true, that the absence of a lover makes itself known in the small things as much as (moreso?) than the bigger ones, but also because it allows for some fun detourning of blues song construction. Lines like “I check the phone/I check the mail/I check the phone again and I call your mom” have the taste of honesty as well as just being funny. Cheap holidays in other people’s misery, indeed, but at least this time we’re all invited.