A new strength for every end: Songs For You and Ben Barnes’ golden dream
Who are you? The person who is content to see the drawing of a hat or who gets frightened at a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant? Ben Barnes is definitely the second one. He doesn’t look as restless as Exupéry’s Little Prince, nor does he talk to snakes, but he shares that same unique perspective to narrate cases of a broken and patched heart. The five songs on Songs For You, his debut EP, prevent some events from becoming blurred memories of twenty years ago. Those who have played a role in them, now decorate rhythmic poems, emanate the warmth of a Sunday morning and collect stars at nightfall. Back then, however, they saw the musician move away from the sky while the answer he sought was rooted there.
The twilight reflected off the lake and it drew back in shame at its own splendour. Try to be happy, advised the rose under the watercolour, so her words shot the prince, and some birds took him away from that planet. Three wishes survived the purple haze; happiness, freedom and courage. Beside the piano, they made the first notes of 11:11 trade hopelessness for an out-of-the-way smile. Repentance is useless if there was no mistake, just the translucent realization that love also resides in farewell. Given this perception, the desire to meet some butterflies united the flower’s petals into a single bud before it bloomed in contentment. Only the trumpet’s crescendo and a guitar solo kept it numbing with the floating lightness of jazz. Even if its lover never returned, it could dance to Sinatra on the moon if it had legs.
At the Earth’s edge, locomotives streaked the crossing tracks with sparks of rain instead of fire. Thunders didn’t stop the gulls from cradling the little one above the shore, and hidden among the verses of Rise Up, he said a prayer to the sun. Please, reign over me until I am ready to belong to someone again. Without hesitating, the sea crashed into red rocks, although any blustering noise was hidden by the cello. All the waves tuned into a chaotic waltz, but none peaked like the vocals, because they smothered measured murmurs with a devoted, fervent, and pleading roar. Gradually, the unison of voices overpowered the water, then the halo of a rainbow stopped the clouds, and entwined the cotton with seven pale colours. I want to be guided by them before I lose myself, thought the prince, already sailing away.
A gust of wind coughed up the introduction of Pirate Song and held its breath. It said men don’t take root, so it was easy to drag them through the air like confetti and streamers. From this party came the sonority of Motown, the frills inspired by Stevie Wonder, and the heartbeat whose rhythm kept a fantasy suspended from port to port. There was a chance of navigating that liquid feeling and sinking for those who refused to be captivated. Instead, the prince had chosen to devote himself to a bud he could water during daylight, move away from the caterpillars in the late afternoon, and keep under a dome before constellations. Shivering with cold, he finally fell asleep on the old wood of the vessel. Perhaps dreams brought back the sweet scent of petals that have grown with the moisture from his lips.
It took a few hours for the light to balance itself on the horizon line. Shadows danced over the canyons at a distance, but would they have written Carpe Diem in the sand? Slipping down the mast, a fox shook its head in denial; another delirium from the coming and going of drunken waves. This one kept that velvety timbre, though it resonated even more melodic whispering advices that spread along with the sultriness. Live, laugh and love. The chorus in Not The End hit the mountains and echoed down to the coral reefs. In that salt atmosphere, it’s only with the heart that one can see rightly, so the shells turned blue with the organ’s harmony and the jellyfish lit in yellow to the dancing beat. Soon the flock of birds caught the prince and, up there, he regretted not being able to wait until he knew what shade of orange the dawn would assume in the eyes of an in-love loner.
Back home, autumn came out through an open window, taking with it the reddest rose among sunflowers. Absence came with the ballad of Ordinary Day and sounded like the sad melody of The Long And Winding Road, both inspired by the bittersweet welcome of winter. Overwhelmed by the string arrangement, the prince confessed to the carved angels that if he started missing her now, he would no longer remember what is essential. In an urge to experience more than one feeling at a time, he wept until the earth was soaked, and deposited in it a few frost-resistant seeds. If right now the days were love songs for someone who isn’t yet ready to hear them, when spring rolled around in circles, they’d explode into a symphony too loud to stop being orchestrated.
