REVIEW // From the Archive: ZAYN, “INTERMISSION: fLoWer”
The first thing you hear is him, somewhere off in the distance. The song is faint and cloudy. There isn’t a lack of presence, rather this is another world that is materializing around me slowly, quietly. Like I’m standing in the middle of a dark blue ocean and he’s calling out to me through the silvery fog.
He wrote this and recorded it sitting next to a pool waterfall. I imagine him sitting casually at the edge, long legs dangling over into the aquamarine, kicking back and forth gently while he plays his guitar. The picked strings complement the depth and softness of his fluttering melody.
It’s simple in the beginning. Not much is happening instrumentally, nor lyrically. But there’s an immediate, almost visceral sensation in my stomach that makes me feel like I am ineluctably giving away a part of myself as a listener. He is giving away a part of himself as an artist. Something about his tone feels both peaceful and defenseless.
There are no words at first. He uses a single vowel to capture a strangely terrifying and enlightening feeling of floating: the moment when you’re swimming in the ocean and there’s a drop in the sea floor and suddenly you feel both small and boundless.
The lyrics are in Urdu, a language I do not know. But maybe that’s why it sounds so much more poetic. They sound melodious and meaningful, as the language itself does. I feel a need to close my eyes and listen.
Jab tak is mohabbat ka phool na khilay,
tab tak is dil ko sukoon na miley.
Dil day mujhe.
Dil day mujhe.
But the beautiful thing is that I almost don’t need to know. I don’t need to know the meaning behind the lyrics, to understand that this song is private and delicate. When he sings, I immediately step into a different dimension. His dimension — the album’s name is Mind of Mine, so it’s appropriate that listening to it feels like I’m intruding on something secret.
It’s a sweet confession. His voice is reminiscent of old Sufi songs.
The first verse has a hint of longing. This is something he has been thinking about for a while. This is something he has been crafting the proper words to for a while. I do not need to know the meaning of the lyrics to understand that there is an underlying request in them. He is asking for something. Not out of a materialistic desire, but out of a helpless need. The romance is palpable in the atmosphere of the song, but it’s a pure, heartfelt kind of romance. Something secret and untouched—this is a sonic embodiment of that deep, innermost connection within ourselves and to each other. This is just love, nothing else.
Okay. Love in its purest, most heartrending form. I brace myself for generous amounts of sappiness and cliche in the translated English lyrics —
And they are sappy and cheesy. But in ways that remind me of old Bollywood songs playing on my dad’s old CD player at home. Sappy in ways that make me want to sway in synchronized movements with my other half. Romantic in ways that make me want to let out my heart’s desires in a euphoric rush. It’s intoxicating.
Until the flower of this love has blossomed, this heart won’t be at peace.
Give me your heart.
Give me your heart.
Simple. Kind of — really — beautiful. Give me your heart repeats like a soft, urgent echo. I’m reading a letter to someone else, an open letter I shouldn’t have read, yet can’t help doing so again and again.
Give me your heart. It may be sappy, but it’s not light. It sits on my ribcage, significant and heavy, and weighs down on me pleasantly throughout the entire song.
And then that heaviness becomes part of everything. The last 30 seconds remind me less of old Bollywood on the CD player and more of mid-decade Coldplay on the radio. The atmosphere widens. It becomes muddier around the edges, and I can almost see a film reel playing back in the textured, shimmering gray. A film reel of memories and secrets and desires and past, present, future.
It sounds a bit dramatic. But. Close your eyes. Tilt your head back. Listen. You can see this soft-around-the-edges world we entered into at the beginning of the song. You can see it expanding and ebbing, flowing in swirls of dark ocean, warm euphoria, floating vulnerability, heavy yearning, and more. The guitar continues as it did before, crooning the same melody throughout the entire ending section. It has to. It’s the only thing that remains relatively the same. Everything else changes like ink dropped into a glass of water. The lightness ends and the heaviness makes way for a more serious, a more invasive experience. It’s not scary. It’s not the deep vast blue of the sudden ocean floor drop. It’s more personal, more within. It pulls at me. There’s an echo somewhere that sounds slightly percussive and his voice fades in and out in harmony with the guitar and the cloudy, strange minor-sounding chords.
This song is lovely, but it’s not simple. It appears that way at first listen. But it’s not. There are so many sub-surface elements that reveal themselves slowly and purposefully. It’s why this song is so intimate. It requires a profound level of vulnerability from both the listener and the artist. Ending it with a strong, grounding outro brings all of that to the forefront and splashes it across the listeners face. I find it refreshing. It’s balanced and beautiful. A dreamy, unconventional love song that embodies a strange, unique richness I am still yet to grow accustomed to.
Words: Nivita Chaliki, originally written 12/15/2019
