With apologies to third-wave feminists everywhere, who for many years have fought to dissuade the general public of the conviction that there is some essence that all women share by virtue of their biological gender that I will reaffirm in oh, about ten words:
I’m going to be a complete girl for this entry.
How could I forget about you, Amel Larrieux? Ah yes, now I remember. I remember being gobsmacked when I heard For Real on a (don’t laugh) National Public Radio music special in 2004. I remember several frustrating weeks, wherein I was not capable of remembering either the lyrics of For Real to Google, nor of figuring out how in the friggin frick to spell your last name (Larreau? Laroue? Larrue? I will take this opportunity to point out that a more accurate Anglicism of the ostensibly French “Larrieux” would be pronounced “Lar-YEUH” and not “La-ROO”, dammit). I remember wishing acute bodily harm upon whoever is in charge of NPR’s site map, because for the life of me I could not find any record of said music special on the entire bloody website. I remember hunting for Bravebird (Blisslife, 2004) in every CD store near Berklee, for God’s sake, upon finally finding a record of the song’s existence, and coming up time and time again empty-handed.
And how did you repay me, Amel Larrieux? With a more or less mediocre record. Rarely have I been so underwhelmed, which is saying a lot given Larrieux’s imposing vocal ability.
I am also not exaggerating when I say that I do not regret expending all of that energy in pursuit of one song, because I am somewhat enamored of it. Lyrically speaking, it is complete mush. It sort of pains me to confront this, but For Real actually opens with what sounds like a toddler’s effort to pronounce the chorus’ affirmation, “I can live, I can love, I can be better with you”.
I know, I know, the baby voice, the girl, the beach, vomit everywhere. But hold onto your poncey horses, because if you are not awed by the way Larrieux puts Mariah Carey’s sometimes-high-E to shame (see 2:33), you may actually be missing a soul. And speaking of soul, the phrasing is fantastic. It’s not a traditional composition, per se, so much as it is more a conjunction of melodically genius eight-counts, with this swoon-y pause in between that, so juxtaposed, just makes intuitive sense when the song sighs back into progression as such. It doesn’t exactly make you want to break it down so much as it makes you yearn for a pair of eyes to gaze into. (Eyes that are, preferably, attached to an agreeable human being, but I’ll take what I can get.)
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