Are You Here

This song almost makse me teary eyed. I'm quite sure that it is about her late husband.

this song touched me in a place i didnt even recognize. in the first couple of lines its "hes the best of his kind"

woah. this track stopped me dead in my tracks. too powerful. you can feel the loss in her frail voice. life gave her too much all at once.

this song just might be one of the most amazing things i've ever heard.

its crazy to see what grief produces.

From what I can tell the repetition of "are you here" is her heart thinking out loud, in a sense.

A conflict exists between what her brain knows and her heart feels so she asks "Are you here?" because her heart is still filled with the same love she had for him before his departure.

For the heart, it's as if he never left. The brain, on the other hand, knows he's gone.

"The tuberose (Polianthes tuberosa) is a perennial plant related to the agaves, extracts of which are used as a middle note in perfumery.

The tuberose is a night-blooming plant.... It grows in elongated spikes up to 45 cm (18 in) long that produce clusters of fragrant waxy white flowers that bloom from the bottom towards the top of the spike."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberoses

From this I gather that the singer-songwriter senses the ethereal presence of what I presume to be her departed lover and companion - recalling him through a vivid and almost visual sense of a fragrance she uniquely associates with him. Perhaps it is the predominant aroma in a fragrance he always wore or a gift of perfume he gave her. That scent, his scent, is still in her bed when she lays down. This nostalgia is so strong it blocks out everything else in the physical world - the pain and perhaps even, temporarily, the feelings of loss. In the end, it is the 'essence' of the person that remains... and lives on, almost in defiance of 'reality'.

I feel the specific reference to a "night-blooming plant" is not merely coincidental. At what other time than nighttime is a soulmate or lover you want to be with more missed than at night when you are alone without out them?

Of course, Corinne Bailey Rae's words might have nothing at all to do with tuberoses in the literal sense. Perhaps it is just a very clever and evocative metaphor. Or perhaps it is that and all of the the above. I hope that this is what it is because, for me, it is far and away the most arresting and outstanding song on this album and thus far in her body of work.

so far my favorite off of "the sea" not completely sure of the meaning of the repetitive "are you here"