"Adore"-Amy Shark
I'm gonna shine my little spotlight on a song I feel deserves attention, but -- like the protagonist in this confessional -- will probably just be ignored by radio here in the U.S.
Australian singer-songwriter Amy Shark's "Adore" just ain't your typical Top-40 fare; no catchy hook... no bouncy chorus. Instead, Amy offers up an introspective poem that seems to be pulled straight out of a young teen's diary.
It's a slow, sweet, sincere, sad, brooding, coming-of-age ballad of being stuck somewhere between the hope and heartbreak of young love. Uneasy feelings of longing-from-afar which are accentuated by the wavering notes Amy carefully picks on her guitar.
"Get me a drink, I get drunk off one sip just so I can adore you/I want the entire street out of town just so I can be alone with you"
"Adore" represents those bittersweet emotions of how it feels to fall totally head-over-heels back-asswards in love with someone who barely knows you exist. Just wanting to be close. Needing to be noticed.
"All of my money is spent on these nights just so we can hang out/Squeezing in and out of these dresses/I wanna be found by you/Found by you"
The first three lines are achingly meloncholic. You can just picture this quiet, lonely, shy shoegazer in the vacinity of her secret crush relishing in any form of attention that may come her way.
"I'm just gonna walk home kicking stones at parked cars/But I had a great night 'cause you kept rubbing against my arm"
Shark explained to 13th Floor journalist Marty Duda, "'Adore' was a really, really easy song for me to write. I kind of heard exactly how I wanted it to sound the second I demoed it. It was such a beautiful song for me, and a special song to me... I just had no idea so many people would relate to it." She added, "It's kind of like a play-by-play of a night that I had... but it sounds like a lot of people had those nights."
There's even a bit of quiet possessiveness to "Adore." And although she warns others to stay clear of her man, they're just fantasies played out in her mind.
"Watch me, watch him talk to girls/I'm known as a right-hand slugger/Anybody else wanna touch my lover?"
Yeah, unrequited love is a bitch.
