We know what today is. Happy Valentine’s Day! Something that I’ve always said about this day is that it isn’t necessarily about loving someone, but about the feelings surrounding it. It’s about voicing how you feel about someone at the core of it, and I think that Hiroki truly gets that with their new song, “Tell Me”.
Musically, this has such a smooth feeling to it! To me, it feels like that song you hear when you are staring out the window on a rainy day after you’ve cut ties with someone. Definitely intentional on the artist’s part, as he said that it has a classic R&B vibe. It absolutely does!
It also has one of my personal favorite instruments: a guitar in the bridge! It just blends things together insanely well. I’m not going to lie, as good as the music is, I’m excited to talk about these lyrics.
Lyrically, this is perfect. Hiroki said that this is a song about the one who got away, and man does he encapsulate that feeling through his words! We start off by the singer saying, “Why the hell am I feeling so high, it’s like I’m touching the ceiling, when you’re around it’s like I found my meaning”. This is a great subversion, as we’re led to believe that this is about a current love, but the song continues.
As the song continues, we hear crooning about this person being “the one”, but reveals that the person has moved on, which leads us to the chorus: Tell me how do I forget this feeling when you’re gone, it always feels like dancing in the evening silence all alone. That right there is poetic as hell!
I love the chorus so much, because I think that in it, you can hear the hurt in the artist’s voice. I personally love it when the vocal tone of the artist matches the lyrics of the song. This is a song about heartbreak, so I want to hear someone who sounds like they’ve been through it! That said, Hiroki nails this perfectly throughout the track, even in the beginning where they sound reminiscent in his tone. That’s not easy to pull off!
I could go on and on about how great this song is, but I will always tell you all to never take my word for it. You need to listen to “Tell Me (When You’re Gone)” by Hiroki, a phenomenal band that I look forward to hearing even more from!
Written by Marcus Norris
FOLLOW HIROKI:
