ok. this is the song that got me to register so I could write a comment. Love this song especially the video filmed by Christian Haag. If you haven't seen it check it out http://www.vimeo.com/2993894.
What I love about this song is how Lykke Li captures that turmoil between not wanting to be let go and wanting to be let go of. "don't you let me go, let me go tonight." That point of internal struggle between two simultaneous but conflicting desires.
Lykke Li also does something interesting in the first verse. She creates this spatial and temporal confusion with alternating directions and double meanings. I'll explain what I mean. In the second line "you're right behind me as before" 'behind' and 'before' are locations like 'behind' and 'in front of', but 'before' is also a time word, so 'behind' becomes imbued with its temporal meaning. This sense of temporal slipperiness is further greased with the next line "yesterday the night before tomorrow." It takes you a moment to figure out what she is trying to say about time. When you do, the narrator is sandwiched between yesterday and tomorrow; just like the narrator is snuggled between 'behind and 'before', spatially and temporally. It almost gives the sense the narrator is blind, feeling behind and in front of herself. And the following line "dry my eyes so you won't know/dry my eyes so I won't show" reveals the narrator is crying and blinded with her tears, wanting those who might see her to be blind to her crying as well. The final line "I know you're right behind me" is a repeat of the second line, but with the alternating opposites in space and time created by the previous 4 lines, the effect is less than the certainty expressed in the first lines "watch my back so I make sure/you're right behind me as before." You're not really sure any more whether that person who has been entrusted with watching her back is really there. Line two reads "you're right behind me as before," but the last line of the first verse drops the 'as before' and the effect seems like something has been lost. A certainty replaced now with blind hope.
So when Lykke Li sings the line "don't you let me go, let me go tonight" the listener feels the narrator's confusion and conflict. With that somber, almost funeral tune, the temporal slipperiness tells a story of confusion, sadness, and pain. Something so lonely; a litany, "he loves me, he loves me not," rocking back and forth to calm. Within that echo ". . .let me go, let me go tonight" there is the opposite desire for freedom and the cessation of pain. In Lykke Li's voice is the intensest longing of wanting to be held. The accompanying piano notes like a child left alone in a house.
By the third verse, the barest sketch of a love affair. Something seemingly long ago with too much pain to hold on to for very long. A sense of love lifting the narrator "above the ground", higher than high heels and higher still, onto high horses, "keeping us safe into the night." A sense of security, "we know them all" and hubris "i know it all." and a game like tag, "now i got you, got you."
two more things of note. "falling deeper by the hour" both falling in love and falling into melancholy. Love how Lykke Li's voice expresses this falling with her descending note. and then a brief struggle as the music and her voice swell for the fourth line "dry my eye, dry my eye." like drying eyes to stop crying.
ok. this is the song that got me to register so I could write a comment. Love this song especially the video filmed by Christian Haag. If you haven't seen it check it out http://www.vimeo.com/2993894.
What I love about this song is how Lykke Li captures that turmoil between not wanting to be let go and wanting to be let go of. "don't you let me go, let me go tonight." That point of internal struggle between two simultaneous but conflicting desires.
Lykke Li also does something interesting in the first verse. She creates this spatial and temporal confusion with alternating directions and double meanings. I'll explain what I mean. In the second line "you're right behind me as before" 'behind' and 'before' are locations like 'behind' and 'in front of', but 'before' is also a time word, so 'behind' becomes imbued with its temporal meaning. This sense of temporal slipperiness is further greased with the next line "yesterday the night before tomorrow." It takes you a moment to figure out what she is trying to say about time. When you do, the narrator is sandwiched between yesterday and tomorrow; just like the narrator is snuggled between 'behind and 'before', spatially and temporally. It almost gives the sense the narrator is blind, feeling behind and in front of herself. And the following line "dry my eyes so you won't know/dry my eyes so I won't show" reveals the narrator is crying and blinded with her tears, wanting those who might see her to be blind to her crying as well. The final line "I know you're right behind me" is a repeat of the second line, but with the alternating opposites in space and time created by the previous 4 lines, the effect is less than the certainty expressed in the first lines "watch my back so I make sure/you're right behind me as before." You're not really sure any more whether that person who has been entrusted with watching her back is really there. Line two reads "you're right behind me as before," but the last line of the first verse drops the 'as before' and the effect seems like something has been lost. A certainty replaced now with blind hope.
So when Lykke Li sings the line "don't you let me go, let me go tonight" the listener feels the narrator's confusion and conflict. With that somber, almost funeral tune, the temporal slipperiness tells a story of confusion, sadness, and pain. Something so lonely; a litany, "he loves me, he loves me not," rocking back and forth to calm. Within that echo ". . .let me go, let me go tonight" there is the opposite desire for freedom and the cessation of pain. In Lykke Li's voice is the intensest longing of wanting to be held. The accompanying piano notes like a child left alone in a house.
By the third verse, the barest sketch of a love affair. Something seemingly long ago with too much pain to hold on to for very long. A sense of love lifting the narrator "above the ground", higher than high heels and higher still, onto high horses, "keeping us safe into the night." A sense of security, "we know them all" and hubris "i know it all." and a game like tag, "now i got you, got you."
two more things of note. "falling deeper by the hour" both falling in love and falling into melancholy. Love how Lykke Li's voice expresses this falling with her descending note. and then a brief struggle as the music and her voice swell for the fourth line "dry my eye, dry my eye." like drying eyes to stop crying.
I'll write more later. got to go for now.