#and tbh the fandom discussions around midnights have inadvertently made me like the album less...? i'll come back around eventually i know

[septembersghost]

"ask me for one again soon please i need an excuse to share the song i almost posted instead of this bc i couldn't make up my mind 😄" I am asking!!! 👀

you cannot possibly understand the close personal love affair i have with this song. he recorded this song specifically for me actually 💕

first of all, the warmth and depth of the vocal here...how am i supposed to talk about that. how. the sincerity and the tenderness. (there are outtakes of him working on this song and finding the best approach to it, and i just!) the metaphor about love taking the rougher road but being more true for it. "how many hearts could live through all the winters we've known and still not be cold?" hello? because love has an ember that's never extinguished.

the title is a little gospely, a little folk parable, the song is secretly batb-style Romantic, hidden under the blues/country/r&b soul and mosaic of his artistry, and the razor-edge between the last of the 60s and dawn of the 70s, and yes i know how that sounds, but listen. listen. he's astonished by her because she's not afraid or ashamed, despite the fact that he's coming from this very imperfect place...and real, lasting love blossoming out of honestly seeing and cherishing each other. there's something sweet and almost kind! "love is a stranger and hearts are in danger on smooth streets paved with gold," all that is gold does not glitter! not all those who wander are lost! (okay, that's lotr, i'm allowed to mix my formative influence metaphors). love takes your hand and steadies you on the difficult path. love doesn't ask for everything to be perfect and easy and grand, sometimes it's a dusty little path that no one else would think is remarkable or special, but you know that it's real and true, and that's all that matters. the hope in it. love for you is like a religion.

this is a little hidden gem of a song, it's deceptively simple (things are happening in the instruments, but subtly, never above his voice. the opening guitar line and how it shifts, the strings coming in and used to underscore specific lines - "no matter how strong the wind blows" - the percussion. the backing harmonies. you can still hear raw sounds from the studio, he takes a shaky breath at one point which isn't evident at all in his vocal strength). it's not even three minutes long, and this is what it does to me.