What Love Is

Soak “Sea Creatures”

This is the kind of extremely romantic song only a teenage songwriter and performer can truly nail. I swear I mean this without condescension! There is nothing immature or cringe-inducing about this song – it’s just got a purity of feeling and concern about the perception of others that peaks in adolescence, even if it often carries through life. This is basically about being in love and feeling misunderstood by everyone around you, and how that alienation makes that love grow stronger. That “you and me against the world thing” is always going to evoke a powerful feeling in me, but the part of this song that really chokes me up is the way she dismisses all these horrible townies who’ve got her down: “I don’t think they know what love is.” She’s frustrated, but also pities them for it.

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