Surrender (2022) – Christina Perri

Christina’s music feels like the cleanest breath of air to me. Even this morning, when I heard this song again, I felt my eyes welling up after the first verse. Tears just came, and I found myself wondering, where did that come from? It almost always happens when I listen to her – something in me just softens. Christina Perri’s music feels like a car wash for the mind. It cleans things out.

This might sound a bit trippy, but I’ll try to keep it grounded. Last night, as I fell asleep listening to an audio What If Earths Magnetic Field Disappeared from the sleepy scientist, I had a series of dreams about meeting Christina and her family. Like most dreams, it all felt completely real at the time.

As frequent readers know here – I have more than a Perri crush. In the dream, though, it was simple and low-key – I was with my kids at what felt like a family gathering. When I saw her, I just told her I was a big fan, and she was warm and easy to talk to. There was a brief moment where our eyes met, and and she reflected back what I was feeling. Such an exquisite, yet quiet exchange I hadn’t event imagined except in my wildest dream – which indeed this was.

It wasn’t anything sexual – it was just an interchange of incomparable love and respect for the other in the most fleeting, but unforgettable way. Toward the end of the dream, I asked if she wanted to join us, but she seemed a little circumspect and emotional, so I left it at that.

There’s a stellar song by her called Fever which is what I felt she was expressing to that enchanted someone; beyond her reason of comprehension in knowing. I suppose it is part of her allure and draws us hopeless admirers under her spell:

I dream about you, but I’ve never even seen your face
I’m thinkin’ constantly about the way I feel to have you near

I have the beginning of that song on my ring dial, so when it comes up randomly in my music collection I try to answer the phone. Pretty mess’d up huh? But I always love whenever I hear the xylophone in the introduction. Now that’s a song.

Today’s featured track, Surrender, is a fairly simple, warts-and-all song by my favourite female artist, but at its heart it’s a search for meaning within the mind of someone dealing with depression. Her latest record – a masterpiece in my book – A Lighter Shade of Blue largely reflects her coming to terms with the loss of her first daughter, Rosie, who was stillborn.

[Intro]
Surrender, mm
Surrender, mm

[Verse 1]
I can make a list, a million things I need to fix
I make everyone crazy, is it somethin’ about me?
I keep tightenin’ my grip, but I aim so much I miss
And I’m fightin’ the river

[Pre-Chorus]
When I try to hold it all together
But it’s just not gettin’ better

[Chorus]
Surrender, mm
Surrender, mm (Ooh-ah)
It’s breakin’ my heart ’cause I don’t understand
Why so much is out of my hands
I have to remember
Surrender
Oh, I keep learnin’ the hard way
Oh, keep forgettin’ how to pray
Someone tell me I’m okay

[Verse 2]
I climbed a mountain, I could not rеsist
And I hit bottom at the top of it
I was broken wide opеn

[Pre-Chorus]
There’s a freedom in the freefall
Wanna scream, but I whisper

[Chorus]
Surrender, mm
Surrender, oh
Oh, surrender (‘Cause I don’t understand)
(I might just surrender instead)
I’ve got to remember (‘Cause I don’t understand)
(Why so much is out of my hands) Ooh
(I have to remember) Ooh
(Let me surrender, surrender)

[Outro]
Surrender, mm (Ah)

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“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand