Waterlilies - What does it all mean?
Waterlilies has a music video and is the fourth track on the Whisper & the Hurricane. The song is an alternative-rock piece in 4/4 and Am.
A lot of songs in my back catalogue have floral names (Snapdragon, Dandelion, Cedar...) but this one is actually named for a painting rather than the flower - Claude Monet's seminal work. My parents had a copy hung on their bedroom wall and the serenity of the moment captured on the canvas has often filled me with a sense of longing.
Fast forward a couple of decades and I remember the Canadian riots during which there was a picture of a couple embraced in a passionate kiss with rioting in the background. Again, here was an image that captured a strong series of emotions. Therefore when I was writing this song, I was thinking more specifically about using imagery to invoke emotion.
The lyrics of the song are about wishing to believe in something - anything. In the original concept of the album (in which every track before London Will Fall is narrated by a potential perpetrator of a terrorist incident) this track is the religious fanatic, committing an atrocity because they genuinely believe it is the right thing to do.
The lyrics don't reflect personal fanaticism though, rather a longing to know that kind of purpose, belonging and/or meaning, but instead I 'stumble through the haze that separates me from the end of days'.
Maybe one of my more profound tracks lyrically, although I'm actually less of a fan of this one. I liked it as an experiment in making something a bit more dance - the robotic repetitive drums and use of effect-heavy piano and synths was to make it sound like a 90s melancholic daft-punk-esque sound. But, though it's interesting, I feel as though it's too much of a step away from my kind of music, it's too clean, too pop, too melancholic - I prefer to return to my tongue-in-cheek dark outlook and punkier stylings!