Rise - The Letter Black

At the end of last month The Letter Black released the song Rise. I just want to take a small dive into this.

First of the title feels like they were late to the race with one of the songs from Nine Lashes released recently sharing the title.

Overall The Letter Black song is about rising from the past. Once you get over the intro of the song that feels not quite like anything else the group has released. The first lyrics we are met with are It was never meant to be like this. I am a big fan of examples, I don’t typically appreciate just being thrown into something without explanation. The like this can just leave you asking like what. The first verse also has the line Always know what you’re running from. This almost points out that you can’t just start comparing things to nothing.

I think there is a reason for leaving this so open though. The idea here is to connect this to every possible situation. If you take the time to read the description on the YouTube video it gets described as really talking about being aware of your influences and how they will affect you.

I personally am not a fan of the open ended option of lyrics, I get that you want it to connect with as many people as possible. I prefer a song that is fully explained and I can get distracted trying to tie an open option to something that is meant to be different for everyone.

This brings us to the point that as long as you can explain what you are singing and have a conversation of what it means to you then you are thinking before you sing.