rambling
im scared. im starting my housekeeping stint this week, so i am a bit scared of something new. but oh well. mal schauen.
what i wanna write about today is this song. i just decided to write this like twenty minutes ago, sitting on the floor, drinking hendricks out the bottle, eating pasta i made myself. i thought ‘what am i gonna do until 12? my friends are all asleep back home’ and thought i’d write this abhorrent jumble of words i call a post.
today’s song on the docket is The Band Camino’s ‘limbo’ because why the hell not?
the song is about, well, a limbo. (cue the infamous DUN-DUN-DUN because im unfunny.)
as always, instrumental first.
it starts off with gentle pianos, like someone playing it alone on a stage before suddenly,
BOOM
a pop-rock beat. did i mention camino’s sorta pop-rock band? same as valley which is my fav band. i might have a type.
Far away, take me on an airplane
’Cause I can’t take everything that you don’t say
We go back and forth, it’s just another day
We might need a little or a lot of space
the first chorus already gave us the premise. the narrator thinks they need space because of thus limbo they created. ‘i cant take everything that you dont say’ sounds like someone has had enough of everything that hasnt been realized with words. like an elephant no one is willing to address. (cue the image of an elephant in a room.)
Float away, meet me on the astral plane
Enchanté, see you in a whole new way
You use your words like the planners and the planets turn
Namaste, tell me it’ll be okay
the second verse plays on where the rhythms are placed. its fun to listen to. and also the words play into the ordeal.
Enchanté means ‘nice to meet you’ normally, which plays into the phrase afterwards. ‘see you in a whole way’ as if meeting the person as a new person, unrecognisable, a far cry from the person they knew.
its like knowing someone intimately after they let down their walls. they show their quirks, their imperfections, their downsides without shame.
the word also means enchanted, which could also mean that the narrator is enchanted and rapidly falling for whoever they’re singing for.
the third line is also very cool. ‘use your words like the planners and the planets turn’ is a way to describe how small a life is in the grand scheme of things. a planner is a person’s attempt to control the future. a planner.
but the bigger things don’t care about you. maybe tomorrow it’ll rain when you’re planning a picnic. maybe it’d be sunny when you wanna wash your car. a planner is our hope for the future, and the planets turning is the way life is, it keeps going, trotzdem what we want to happen.
‘namaste, tell me it’ll be okay’ is… helplessness. namaste means ‘bow to you’ and continued with ‘tell me it’ll be okay’ sounds like someone at the end of their rope. actually, the whole second verse is like helplessness and escapism.
‘astral plane’, ‘planets turn’, and the whole namaste thing sounds like escapism. do correct me if im using ‘escapism’ wrongfully here, my dear sister who knows more about the psyche. im just a boy talking about an indie-rock song with cool guitars and cooler drums.
now onto the chorus.
Maybe I’m just free-fallin’
Maybe my mantra’s callin’
Maybe we both just made mistakes
I don’t wanna hear you tell me that
Maybe it’s a lesson that we don’t learn
Maybe it’s a little more heartburn
Maybe my mind’s on holiday
Maybe I need to hear you say“I’m yours”
“I’m yours”
“I’m yours”
the first two lines differ.
‘maybe im just free fallin’ is reckless. ugal-ugalan if ya speak indonesian. disregard for consequences and repercussions of whatver it is you’re doing.
‘maybe my mantra’s callin’ is controlled. mantra, directly translated, means ‘a tool for the mind’ which means the narrator is using their head, not their heart. unlike the first line.
its a war in their conscience.
one side is reckless while the other is anchored. what if i’m losing control of my emotions? what if my mind is conflicted with my heart about this? what if my beating heart wants me to lose control while my head says it’s a bad idea? what now?
aber guck mal. mantra is something you repeat to help stay motivated. or its their core belief. and what has been repeated? ‘im yours” has been repeated 3 times. that might show that the narrator believes (or want to) that he belongs to his lover. that might be another play into the line.
another idea. what if his mantra of ‘im yours’ is just him deluding himself that it’ll work out. his head is making amends with his heart where the two meet and common ground is created, despite it not being real.
the next lines are also conflicting.
‘maybe we both just make mistakes’ is human. forgiving. understanding from both perspectives that they’re not perfect.
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‘i dont wanna hear you say, it’s a lesson that we don’t learn’ sounds like someone demanding clear guidelines. perfection. yes or no.
the narrator is both forgiving themselves and demanding strict barriers. a lesson you dont learn is a mistake because if you learned, you wouldnt do the same thing.
‘maybe its a little more heartburn’ is almost ‘oops, our mistake’ before continuing. heartburn isn’t heartbreak. heartburn sounds more temporary. more forgiving.
‘maybe my mind’s on holiday’ sounds like the previous line. as if their mistakes are discredit due to ‘my mind is on holiday’ while being a complete and utter dumbass.
but the last lines
Maybe I need to hear you say
“I’m yours”
“I’m yours”
“I’m yours”
that sounds like the narrator is FINALLY giving an answer, a solution. because the previous lines are more reasoning, no out. now the narrator is more direct. ‘maybe i need you to claim me for all this drama to end’ is a simpler way to read those last lines.
but notice this.
it’s all maybes.
almost all the line started with ‘maybe’.
the narrator themselves are uncertain, but they believe that his wish will eradicate his problems, his mistakes, his scars. that plays into limbo. this uncertainty of an outcome because the proceedings isn’t even happening.
its just the narrator playing everything out inside their head.
the singer never explicityly said ‘we’re in limbo’ or ‘im in limbo with what youre doing to me’, its all imagery.
maybe its just lessons
maybe its heartburn
maybe i need to hear you say that im yours.
its all wishful thinking with no follow through.
the narrator is scared to break what is happening between them. because voicing out his wishes might break whatever status they had, even if its just… HTS or sumn.
another layer i can add is the album’s name.
the album’s name is ‘NeverAlways’ which is two polar opposites. two extremities. Never. Always.
and yet the singer is sitting in maybes the whole song. its as if the concept is that the narrator is either all in or not even considering it, and yet theyre negotiating. because thats what people do when they like something. they negotiate. with their values, their beliefs, their everything. negotiates until it reaches a breaking point or their target. whichever one comes first.
the song isnt about heartbreak (unlike my previous entries) and its not about falling in love.
the song is about what love is when it goes unsaid. when one side is waiting for the other, while the other side doesnt even want to put what they have into words.
or its two people waiting on each other. an eternal stalemate because the possibility of losing what they have outweighs the possibility of what could be.
wow.
what a song that describes a situation very uniquely and yet uses the same concept as most songs, limbo.
winter’s comin’, im yearnin’, and the weather is defniitely not helping me getting upbeat.
whatever.
the gin bottle is calling my name again.
i might write tomorrow. or wednesday. another song is in my mind.
bye.
