(Let’s talk poetry, shall we?) Been scouting for great art our whole lives. And there’s one thing we know for sure: reading poetry can be the most boring thing in the world. For real. It almost makes you wanna quit. But if you don’t, and you do try, and you keep searching, and finally, at length, find something truly good, it can be the most poignant and intimate experience imaginable. After all, if anything, it is a bit like panning for gold, really. And the trick with good poetry is that when you do find your desired nugget, anything can happen. Some line, some verse, some word – click. Chemicals flooding your brain. Did you let me go, did you let me go?
Still frame from the video of LP performing “One Night In The Sun” in Moscow
Never before has it been more tempting to go on about our perception of LP’s lyrics. “One Night In The Sun” just boils and freezes one’s conscience in singular still frames of the hazards of an ending love. And LP, as an experienced heart surgeon, is very precise and clever with her cuts. The words are so dazzlingly brilliant. Maybe the best we’ve ever read from LP. Tangible, sensual, sunburnt. The language that LP has used puts some very vivid images straight into your neuron web. Through its lyrics, the song just corners you, and first it makes you think, but as it ends, you basically don’t think any longer. You just feel.
Funny what LP said in an interview about not being one of those “poetry people” growing up. Well, turns out you can’t cheat these things. If you’ve got it, writing something like “One Night In The Sun” is gonna happen to you anyway. And LP truly is nothing short of a poet. It is one of the reasons why we love the Heart To Mouth album so very much, with that song crowning it at its lyrical pinnacle. This element of her writing has always been there, but it seems like on this record it really kicked in full swing. Right from the very first song, all the way up to the last.
This evocative leaning of “One Night In The Sun” doesn’t end with its lyrics. It translates to its performance and live interpretation. Yes, LP is somehow putting poetry into her performance of the song, making it the dramatic core of her Heart To Mouth tour setlist – the most profound and emotionally intense moment of her show, right in the middle of the set. Brilliance.
And the performance of the song in Moscow did justice to every phrase of these exquisite lyrics. So many subtleties about how LP sang it there… Every single line got its focus and attention, every word was treated with care. They came alive, these pictures. The beach, the sea, the lover, the enlightenment, the loss. We will say no more. And anyway – writing about music is like dancing about architecture, as a wise man once said. Oh, we so obviously need to wisen up.
The instruments go silent and the last notes of the acapella finale fade away. Then the performance ends and you’re left with, well, whatever it is that happened to you in the interum. Scary, just to feel things, isn’t it? LP plugs you in, and in this weird artificial reality around us, it’s good to check on yourself from time to time. It’s sometimes hard to do so, but what the hell. The world slowly turns its back to plastic anyway.
✶ LP singing “One Night In The Sun” in Moscow (April 9th, 2019)