I first heard �Objects in the Rearview Mirror� when I was a senior in high school. That would have been around 1995, when Bat Out of Hell II: Back to Hell came out. Since my earliest memories are closely tied to Bat Out of Hell (released the year I was born) it was wonderful to complete my senior year with a new collection of songs from the Steinman-Aday collaboration. �Objects� was, to me, the most powerful track on the album, and the music video ripped a hole in my emotions with its imagery and narration. Then about six years later, I saw Eve Ensler�s Vagina Monologues performed at a nearby college. One of the monologues that stayed with me was �The Little Coochie-Snorter That Could�, a beautiful and moving piece that consisted of recollections of a woman�s life told in anecdote format. Along comes the Wolverine & Rogue writing bug � stinger aimed directly at my backside, I might add, curse it to hell and back � and the two coalesced into �Objects�. The story was in the song, the format was from the monologue. It was a frustrating two nights of my life I gave to exorcising this from my head. I struggled with the ending for longer than I care to admit. I had to listen to the song three or four times before I picked up that the narrator was in the autumn of his life, and there was the setting. I wondered about what Rogue had learned from these intimate glimpses into Logan�s life and then it hit me. He saved her life on the Statue of Liberty, but she really saved his that day on the road. Before Marie, his laughter was bitter; his grudges, legendary. She opened his heart when she asked him if it hurt when his claws came out. That her concern and curiosity centered on his pain touched something that had been dead in his soul for a very long time. Logan would never be just �the Wolverine� to her. She saw past the animal and touched the face of the man when she surrendered to the memories he gave her along with his gift of healing. �And though the nightmares should be over, some of the terrors are still intact� was, in my opinion, the key to the ending. Logan feared the nightmares, so he refused to remember the good things in his life. It is up to Marie to fight for his humanity and his ability to love.

Copyrighted � 2003 Silver Thistle Publishing.