From there the song keeps building, like a raging fire fuelled by the opening verse’s slow burn anger at societal expectations placed on women. Later, as the song starts to wrestle with itself, Welch snaps: “Oh God, what do I know?” 12 King (2022)Īround the two-minute 45 seconds mark of this first single from next month’s Dance Fever, Welch unleashes an almighty, wordless roar, as if making it very clear that High As Hope’s sonic retreat was an anomaly. Over airy production, here she half-remembers nights spent holding hands with strangers “high on E”, and relishes in the false certainty of “it doesn’t get better than this”.
Photograph: Sergione Infuso - Corbis/Corbis/Getty Images 13 South London Forever (2018)Ĭreated at the start of her 30s, High As Hope excels when Welch looks back at her youth with misty-eyed clarity. Here she is overwhelmed by bodies of water, a place both beautiful and deadly. Named after Frida Kahlo’s 1938 painting, Ceremonials’ more rock-leaning promotional single (AKA the one before the proper single), finds Welch returning to a lyrical trope trying to understand the vastness of something too enormous to understand. On Lungs’ propulsive fourth single, a new crush elicits the kind of high-wire emotions more akin to drowning, an exhausted Welch left “as empty as that beating drum”. While her early pop contemporaries Lily Allen and Adele turned relationships into soap operas and kitchen-sink dramas, Welch spun them into gothic fantasies. “I thought I was flying but maybe I’m dying tonight,” Welch sings softly over distant harp flutters.
Lyrically it ponders the paradox of performing live, exploring the huge highs that only temporarily pierce moments of strange isolation. High As Hope’s lead single feels like a soft caress in comparison to the usual cold, hard slap of a big chart-facing hit.
0 kommentar(er)
