#timoteij

Anyone remember that Ask about what song would be NRS’ song, I answered Glad You Came because I was in a hurry. I have a new, better answer now.

Stormande Hav, by my childhood favourite band, Timoteij. The title means Storming Sea. It’s a Swedish song and band, but here’s a quick translation of the lyrics which is made by me:

Storming Sea (original: Stormande Hav by Timoteij)

If I said what I felt, if I said how it was If you saw what I thought, would you stay here? For I, I don’t know anymore what drove us two apart For we, will never get any higher than this

On a whirling, storming sea The feeling take me back Despite all the promises we gave On a whirling, storming sea

I want to feel your warmth, the yearning has been long For me it feels like something’s going on

On a whirling, storming sea The feeling take me back Despite all the promises we gave On a whirling, storming sea

The thoughts cross each other Now after all that has happened Can you hear my heart again? Do you stand like me in the whirls of a storming sea?

In your eyes I can see the hunger Am I the only one who wants to stay?

“Never Gonna Be the Same Without You” by Timoteij

DV:

At its core, “Never Gonna Be the Same Without You” is just another electropop song about heartbreak, but I really love the way the small touches Timoteij utilize emphasize and strengthen the emotion at the heart of this well-trod territory. There’s the soft “Mmm” after “Your hands stroking my hair”, suggesting the meaningfulness of the smallest gestures in the relationship the singer’s left, implying that even though she’s focused on “finding her own way,” she still looks back fondly on what she’s leaving behind. There’s the contrast between the plainspoken lyric of the verse - “We’re not meant to be/ It was hard to see” - and the way the chorus balances that grounded reality with melodrama - “Now I’m gonna close that door/ Run into a lion’s roar”. It’s most of all in the way the chorus’s synth swells suggest a triumphant realization that’s completely undercut by the vocal’s shift up to falsetto. It’s a change that suggests fragility, confusion, delicacy; it’s a sharp, complicating contrast to the rueful determination delineated in the verses. The song works because of Timoteij’s dedication to these small but meaningful touches: they’re details inside a conventional structure, but what matters more in a breakup than the details?

MG: