YouTube: rb.gy/3p9h96
I know this track came out in March. I even know that HAIM is about to drop a new album on Friday. But don't ask me how I stumbled on this, I can't remember. But about halfway through this cut I got hooked.
Well, let me explain that. I'm not telling you for your opinion, I'm not even sure I'm trying to turn you on to it, or maybe that's just me trying to avoid the tsunami of abuse from the minions. Everybody has to prove their taste is better than yours. There's a chilling effect. But...
I've been unable to get this song out of my head, even though this has never happened previously with a HAIM track...nice normal girls, at least the one time I hung out around them, but the music was just one step left of repeatability, it was more intellectual than emotional, whereas "Relationships" is the latter. If you want to know what the seventies sounded like, after Vietnam was in the rearview mirror, after the protests were history, this is the feeling, if not the actual notes. That's one thing that's been lost in the last few decades, optimism. We've got anger, frustration, and they're roots of rock and roll, definitely, but hope and everyday hedonism, driving with the windows down with the radio blasting or sitting on the beach or out anywhere in the elements, that's been eliminated. Whereas our music used to enhance our good feelings. It wouldn't make you happy if you weren't, but if you were, the music rode shotgun and lifted your mood even higher, that's the alchemy of identity and music, they meld together to yield something more, that you cannot get anywhere else.
"Wasting time, driving through the Eastside
Doing my thing 'cause I can't decide if we're through
Well, are we?
And if we are, what are we gonna do?"
Only a woman could sing these lyrics. Men don't reveal this straightforward honesty in music, or real life either. If men even deign to discuss relationships it's with attitude, a power dynamic, whereas the amazing thing about the lyrics here are they're sans heaviness, which makes them so appealing.
"Baby, how can I explain when an innocent mistake
Turns into seventeen days f*ckin' relationships?"
After finding out that "Relationships" came out three months ago I Googled the lyrics, and this is the one that stood out. What exactly is going on here? I don't think of innocent mistakes leading to relationships, just the opposite. As for seventeen days... That's the life of rock stars or people floating in social circles far from mine, where the threshold to getting involved is low and you can get over someone in the blink of an eye. I mean it might take me seventeen days to reach out, have a conversation back and forth and maybe go on two dates, but this entire relationship was seventeen days from beginning to end?
"Don't they end up all the same
When there's no one left to blame?
I think I'm in love, but I can't stand f*ckin' relationships"
Actually, they don't all end up the same. But I get the concept of the thrill of love and the baggage of the actual relationship. You look into their eyes and feel the connection, you walk with a bounce in your step, but then you find out you've got completely different values, they can't show up on time and you hate their friends and...
"You gotta tell me the truth
If you don't want to try
I hear a voice in my head
And it keeps asking, 'Why am I in this relationship'"
The power imbalance. When you want it more than them. When you're not even sure if you are in a relationship. They're present and then they're elusive. You're invested and they're hit and run. And you get frustrated and ask yourself whether you should disconnect, but just like in "Annie Hall" you find it difficult, because you need the eggs.
"Oh, this can't just be the way it is
Or is it just the sh*t our parents did
And had to live with it in their relationship?
Relationships
F*ckin' relationships"
What's with all the profanity? I love when girls swear, when they're not prim and proper. But if I spell the word out completely this e-mail will be blocked by corporations all over the world. Then again, there is a clean version of this song, but... How did our parents do it? Was it just a matter of commitment? And none of the HAIM women is married or has children, it used to be only men did this, maybe they froze their eggs, maybe they don't care about having a family, I never did, then again, my window of opportunity never closed.
"But I would do it all again
If you put down your defenses
I think I'm in love, so why I am trying to escape from it?
Maybe that's just how it goes
When you're not fully grown"
It's not only men who have defenses, then again, as I've referenced above, women will talk about their feelings, men almost never will, so you can't even get down to the real nitty-gritty. She's all-in, she's ready to play, but he isn't...is it because he doesn't want to, doesn't know how to or is afraid to? Meanwhile, the woman in this song is exactly the one most men want to be involved with. For all the debonair elusive dudes, most men are clueless and want women to make the move and lead, at the same time so many are afraid that by committing and tying themselves down they'll miss out on...exactly what? Someone better who never arrives? And then there's that twist of the knife, about him not being fully grown, not mature, women can see the window of opportunity will shut, men think it's open forever.
Having written all of the above, the magic of the lyrics in "Relationships" comes LAST!
Maybe some musicologist from Berklee can explain exactly what is happening in this track, all I can say it's hypnotic, your mind is nodding your head, even if your cabeza really isn't.
You get into a trance, that you want to continue, which is why I put "Relationships" on endless repeat.
And then there's that piano note. I think it's a piano. Then again, I don't like the fake drums and the fact that there may be a chorus but no real changes, so "Relationships" is not for all time, just now, but it fits a niche that is too often empty.
So I went to YouTube and found a magic video which only had 1.9 million views. But the images had the same feel as the lyrics, and listening with the captions on I realized "an innocent mistake" might have been casual sex...women might refer to that as a mistake, men never do. Also, for some reason the break where all the instruments fall out and then slowly come back in, the bass and then the piano(?) is part of the magic.
And then I go on Spotify and see there are 20 million streams, so... You can't get rich on that number, but it does show people are listening...
And I was about to check out Mediabase to see if there was any radio action and then it occurred to me that fans of HAIM would not be listening to terrestrial radio with all its commercials, they want to hear what they want to when they want to.
So is "Relationships" a hit or irrelevant?
Neither. Not everybody knows it. Media has been telling us a new HAIM album has been coming for months, the hype building in intensity up to Friday's release, but despite knowledge of its imminent drop, I had no intention of listening to it, but then for some reason I can't put my finger on, I ended up playing it, and playing it...
And then I played the rest of the already released cuts from the new album and they didn't resonate the same way.
So I went back to the earlier work, listened to track after track and felt like I always had, I had no desire to hear them ever again, never mind play all the way through.
But I can't stop listening to "Relationships," I can't get it out of my head. It just makes me feel GOOD!
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