r/indiepop

Trve occvltist tvvee… (okay i guess(

I usually don’t post about music I find however I found this random indie song last night and i can’t stop replaying it. it kinda gives me that old Her’s feeling mixed with late-night nostalgia or something. genuinely one of the prettiest songs i’ve heard in a while. It’s called alovesong by gerell

When you cover one of your own songs...

Symbolism is the language of dreams, the unconscious, and the psyche in dark of the night. Speaking via symbolism conveys more deeply what someone feels, beneath the conscious surface. That's why I thought to take a symbolic perspective in reading this song. Anyway-

“Hey, kids, into dust together” is how the song begins, with such kid/child-ish lightweight innocence, yet with such existential heavyweight dissolution. This contrast of the light/innocent and the heavy/weighted is seen countless more times from this point on as well. “Eyelids heavy as leather” and the next line “Fluffy [...]”, in my mind, mingle into “Eyelids heavy as feather”, once again, contrast of light and heavy, innocence and weight. Such contrast is observed lyrically as with phonetically. Such innocent, dreamy sensation expressed through soft waves and gentle beats, and yet there’s such sharp a split (at 1:38, after Verse 1, before Verse 2) that the delicate, innocent beauty is shattered by rough, heavy weight. The contrast aforementioned continues. The supposedly warm and loving company comes as “Freaky company”, the soft and liberating beach comes as “plastic beach”. I imagine only someone who has experienced profound confusion themself could write something as affective as this.

The existential confusion I mentioned is clearly seen by others too. There came a trend of short videos featuring this song- Minecraft sky islands (for those who don’t know, the concept is letting the player live on a floating piece of small land with limited resources, gather resources (like wood) and building and extending and turning a constraining space into a liberating one (that liberating spirit is also pretty much *the* spirit of Minecraft)) The short videos would involve the player surviving on the sky islands, suddenly discovering they live in but a simulation, and is surveillanced in some lab, kept as a subject, an experiment. The existential confusion of the song hits, matching the story beautifully- someone living as them suddenly discovering their life isn’t real. What comes immediately isn’t anger at the betrayal or extreme horror at the loss, but profound confusion. Confusion so deep that no words can express its depth.

I took the reading from my journal-ish essay here, if that intrigues you