fall to pieces

If piers were houses, most would have been condemned decades ago, or left to fall to pieces on their own.

But the most thrilling moments on “Cowboy Carter” aren’t feats of reclamation so much as achievements of invention: hard-to-classify songs such as “Sweet Honey Buckiin’,” in which Beyoncé croons Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces” over a thumping Jersey club groove, or “II Hands II Heaven,” a celestial trance-folk fantasia that evokes a long night in the desert.

Comets can suddenly brighten in an outburst, fall to pieces or just fizzle out.

I’ll be singing a sad song — how about “I Fall to Pieces”? — if he doesn’t join his co-star as a nominee.

Seeing Seydoux suddenly fall to pieces carries with it an honesty in how we all try to hold ourselves and our lives together until we simply cannot.