'Islands' turned me on to the xx... more specifically the magically-weird music video. One view and I was hooked. The video was compelling but the song...
I like it. And it's good.
Like any good song, it can mean a lot of things depending on who you are at the moment. But I think--I think a lot of people are hitting the nail...erm not on the head necessarily but getting there.
A lot of people have said happiness. Just as many have said sadness. klopas mentioned that it's about a person who's "rocked their [the speaker's] world," in a positive way. vaqued suggested the speaker is never going to live life "outside that moment" now that his/her affections have been recognized by their object. noirarcanum mentions ambivalence, pGFP nervousness. it was interesting to see beccabanksxx's breakdown of getting talked into love followed by calamitycalls's explaining the pitfalls of believing in one's own delusion.
...but it's a bit bemusing when the song gets typecast as being about blissful security or transformed into a story about either wanting to be promiscuous or having some traumatic falling-out with a soulmate. 'islands' can be a lot of things but it's always itself.
if i just really sit down with the song and listen to what it's saying, i'm getting different layers. like the music video, the song seems quite simple, sparse, but what makes it haunting is that it surprises you with tonnes of meaning that you didn't expect and is just awesome. 'cause this stuff you can relate to in a visceral way, but it's enough just to examine it. oliver said that when he writes, he does it sometimes just when he's really ready to sleep, and when he wakes up and looks at his work, he sees it with a detachment.
looking at 'Islands,' with detachment, I feel as though it's just one page of someone's diary, about one who, as darkflower put really well, realized they've found a wonderful answer to just playing the field but has seen that their way of seeing things had been far from correct. and that just means a "return to old habits." the beginning is just very fresh, almost naive, but then things build, and by the end the riff from the beginning's become perfunctory, it's thawed a little. just a little. and i just gotta listen again.
if there's any song that could define slipping away out of love, this would be it.
'Islands' turned me on to the xx... more specifically the magically-weird music video. One view and I was hooked. The video was compelling but the song...
I like it. And it's good.
Like any good song, it can mean a lot of things depending on who you are at the moment. But I think--I think a lot of people are hitting the nail...erm not on the head necessarily but getting there.
A lot of people have said happiness. Just as many have said sadness. klopas mentioned that it's about a person who's "rocked their [the speaker's] world," in a positive way. vaqued suggested the speaker is never going to live life "outside that moment" now that his/her affections have been recognized by their object. noirarcanum mentions ambivalence, pGFP nervousness. it was interesting to see beccabanksxx's breakdown of getting talked into love followed by calamitycalls's explaining the pitfalls of believing in one's own delusion.
...but it's a bit bemusing when the song gets typecast as being about blissful security or transformed into a story about either wanting to be promiscuous or having some traumatic falling-out with a soulmate. 'islands' can be a lot of things but it's always itself.
if i just really sit down with the song and listen to what it's saying, i'm getting different layers. like the music video, the song seems quite simple, sparse, but what makes it haunting is that it surprises you with tonnes of meaning that you didn't expect and is just awesome. 'cause this stuff you can relate to in a visceral way, but it's enough just to examine it. oliver said that when he writes, he does it sometimes just when he's really ready to sleep, and when he wakes up and looks at his work, he sees it with a detachment.
looking at 'Islands,' with detachment, I feel as though it's just one page of someone's diary, about one who, as darkflower put really well, realized they've found a wonderful answer to just playing the field but has seen that their way of seeing things had been far from correct. and that just means a "return to old habits." the beginning is just very fresh, almost naive, but then things build, and by the end the riff from the beginning's become perfunctory, it's thawed a little. just a little. and i just gotta listen again.
if there's any song that could define slipping away out of love, this would be it.