picture source: Stereogum
thunder and rain. when it is so soft that you can't even hear it. i told you something safe.
i'm currently sitting in a cheap hotel room. the pounding rain outside my window is both overwhelming and calming. it's dimly lit, the tv is permanently on a no signal screen. there are occasional muffled roars that rattle the walls; there is an airport right next door and planes are taking off down the runway and into the chilled air.
i am on the bed. and although there is not much to the room, i can watch the way it transforms. two people. hopelessly devoted to each other, dancing around the meager square footage, wrapped up in their own world of naive emotions and honest promises. it is like a grainy film playing out before me, in the projector screen of my mind. hands and slow blinking, bare feet and wet hair, flushed cheeks and echoing laughter. a beautiful cacophony of passion, tenderness and lonely imagination.
i am on the bed. and i am listening to a song that illustrates these images like an old fashioned panoramic slide viewer. troye sivan has magic. and it is unfurling around me in a cool rush of impassioned rapture and ecstasy. 'animal' is love in all its shades and shapes and textures. it is the kind of song you watch someone to, the kind of song you memorize their face to. it's almost aching to hear, lying on a bed, in a cheap hotel room.
there really is echoing laughter. a soft addition in the slow space between the first chorus and the second verse. it fits in like a momentary percussion. it makes my eyes fall shut and an involuntary smile grace my lips. an ode to the boy i love, he sings earnestly. and even more so are his next words, boy i'll die to care for you. the instrumental is rendered tastefully, with emphasis on troye sivan's reverberating, honey smooth voice. soft, strumming guitars and echoey drum beats make 'animal' musically breathtaking. and while the resounding, atmospheric quality of the song is pure magic, he manages to take the world in his arms and magnificently turn it upside down for the bridge. it vibes in your ears, his voice dips low and echoes out into the shimmering beat and smooth guitars until it drops off into the gentle ambience of the rest of the song.
picture source: The Interns
i want you all to myself. don't leave none for nobody else. i am an animal with you. no angels could beckon me back. it's hotter than hell where i'm at.
i am an animal with you.
and then i hear the storm, the flickering montage of hotel room lover's paradise that played out in the soft beginnings of the song now rushes back in full force. i'm lying on the bed and this is what being in love sounds like. it is all i can think about, all i can imagine, all i can feel. muffled hums of troye sivan's ardent confessions, heartbreaking synth melodies, echoing drum beats all blend together to make my heart race, as if my soulmate were sitting right here in front of me. then suddenly it all ends. and i'm left with the burning image of loving someone, filled with premonition and the need to listen to the song again, just to get a taste of what it feels like. i never want to stop listening. no angels could beckon me back.