"Pretend (Reprise)" by LIGHTS from the album The Listening. 2009.
For the third-of-year closure, the lights shine towards LIGHTS and her acoustic piano reprise of "Pretend". The produced original sports a mellow synthpop feel, which sits great for the casual listenings. Yet the version featured, consisting of just her voice and the ivory, strikes a more powerful resonance with its lyrical content.
Generally, if you dig Owl City, you'll fancy LIGHTS too. They've got a similar style for the vast chunk of their discography. Sort of a New Age geared towards the masses, if you will, with melodic beeps and electronic vocal tones. This type of music could never quite portray anger; it just comes off as too playful and bouncy to ever stretch past melancholy. Even the sadder numbers have a certain air of "it's going to be alright" about them- except, of course, when you strip them down to bare minimals. As with this.
Anyone who's grown up can relate to the masterfully crafted lyrics. While at first the lyrics may seem a bit obviously overstated, you'll soon retract your "well, duh" for a "heh, I've been there..." mentality. Take the opening line: "Once in a while I act like a child to feel like a kid again". That basically sums up the whole meaning, but put so blandly one questions why bother searching for an underlying moral. Well, once she starts reminiscing about "the time we got by on gratitude" and when "the worst they could do to you was check your attitude", you being to really think about your childhood too. It's great thinking back to those memories, perhaps remembering young triumphs in the playground. Living with those freedoms again though? Not likely. At least, not permanently... which I feel completes the roundabout to that intro. To actually relish those memories and feel like a kid again, there's only one way: act like a child, even if only once in a while. With those thoughtful chords as a backdrop and the sincerity in her confidently timid voice, you'll encounter not a wading pool of difficulty doing just that.
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