la lengua

Currently Listening: Yael Naim - Levater

There’s something captivating about listening to music in a foreign language. It’s a beautiful paradox - you can’t understand a single word, but magically, you still understand everything. Lost in translation? There’s no such thing. You know exactly how the artist felt when the song was written - you know what it means. You can feel every last feather’s weight of emotion buried beneath the notes, it’s not hard to dig up. You can sense the direction of the melody: the climb of an uphill scale, the freedom of arpeggios, the circular waves of rotating chords. It’s just like feeling the wind - you don’t have to open your eyes to know which way the air is blowing; where it’s colliding with your face, nipping your ears, fluttering your hair is already evidence, enough. The subtle touches of every moment of the music do the translation, by themselves. It’s like slowly (but freely) connecting dots between the stars at night, forming your own masterpiece of imagination.

So, no - I have no clue as to what “Levater” translates to in English. But frankly, I don’t want to know. Leaving it a mystery, out of my grasp in a sense, makes it that much more fulfilling to the ear. I’m free to run away with it’s mood, to drown myself in its remarkably powerful chorus, to adjust my interpretation of the music to good mornings, good nights, and good byes.