iPod song of the week – Deftones
Hey! I’m back on schedule! But this week I’m doing something a little different which is to talk about a song in one of my posts, National Friends Day. I put it there, sure, because I was talking about the Deftones, but also because it’s the only song I’m listening to at the moment. When I was on the plane I listened to the Deftones new album, Saturday Night Wrist on an endless loop, mostly because I kept falling asleep and then I’d wake up and there would be no music on and so I’d restart it. But it was the refrain from this song that punctuated my dreams and when I got home I immediately looked up the lyrics to see what could make him sing it like that. I warn you, it’s a downer.
The song starts out kind of ominously but also calmly while he sets the scene.
A sea of waves, we hug the same plank…
OK, we get it, it’s two people in the middle of the sea clutching a piece of wood to stay alive. But when the bridge comes, the music and the voice rise as the action comes up.
If the waves suuuuuck
you in
And you drown…..
And here’s where his voice calms down and changes into something sort of wistful and hopeless, almost dead, for the refrain that played endlessly in my sleep on the plane and really still does.
If like yoooooooouuuu
Should sink down beneath…
In the middle of the line his voice changes again to be sort of a declaration, like he is crying out to her, don’t you understand what I’d do for you?
I’ll swim down
And the word swim is extended and sort of desperate, not because she is drowning but because of what he says in the next line:
Would you? Would you?
But by that line, the panic is gone and it’s also sung sort of wistfully, almost dirgelike, because he knows it. It’s unsurprising. And you see, that’s the poignancy of the song. The feeling that you would risk all for someone who wouldn’t do the same for you and you now know it. It’s the hopelessness of it; there is no way to change that person’s feelings into those that will equal yours. And just after, there’s an electronic sound effect that sounds a bit like a woman’s laughter. Poor Chino.
If you’re not a fan of the Deftones, at least listen to the bridge/chorus I’ve described which first comes at about 0:45-1:25 but gets even more emotional the second time at 2:10.
