Rosemary & Garlic’s achingly intimate and stirringly tender song “Television” offers a refreshing perspective on memory, time, where and how we find meaning in our everyday, and the special moments that make up a lifetime.
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Stream: “Television” – Rosemary & Garlic
I don’t need a television, give me a window for I have a whole life to mesmerize.
From work and school to family and friends, celebrations and parties, push notifications and news, life is full of distractions. Our days are inundated with experiences – some fleeting; some random; some special and memorable – and ultimately, these events and encounters take up the bulk of our attention, fill up the majority of each 24-hour period, and make up the little moments of a lifetime.
So, are we happy with how we’re spending our time? Are we happy with the makeup of our days, weeks, months, and years? If we’re lucky enough to grow old, will we be happy with the memories we’ve made? Rosemary & Garlic’s achingly intimate and stirringly tender “Television” is, at its heart, a testament to how precious our time truly is. Sung from the perspective of someone at the end of her life, looking back on and reliving her memories, it’s a reminder to live life well, because it only happens once. At the end of our days, it’s not about the physical objects; it’s about the intangibles – memories, moments, and milestones.
Waking up when
The boys they ran away
On a summer’s day
My God I’m not even done
All kindness is gone away
They stole my poetry, unexpectedly
From the windowsill
These words
Spilled on the paper
Build my way from home
These words
Spilled on the paper
Build my way from home
Released September 30 via Nettwerk Music Group, “Television” is a captivating beautiful return for Rosemary & Garlic. The Dutch indie folk artist’s first single of 2022 employs spellbinding piano balladry to tell a story of her own late grandmother, who spent her last years in a nursing home.
“She would just sit by the window there in a very chaotic room with all different kinds of people with their own problems and needs,” Rosemary & Garlic’s Anne van den Hoogen recalls. “The only way for her to escape was to sit by the window, to read poetry, and think. She once told me that she didn’t want to be a part of the common room – a part of watching TV, which was always on and way too loud – because she said, ‘I have my whole life; I have 80 years to remember, so why would I watch tv? Just give me my space at the window so I can think about things that happened in my life.’”
“I found that kind of escapism very touching… ‘I don’t need a television, give me a window for I have a whole life to mesmerize.‘ All she wanted to do was read poetry or to just look out of the window while the others played Bingo and screamed through the sound of the TV. She hated the common room and she just wanted to drift away in her reverie, longing every day more for her escape from the world.Even though she didn’t want to be a part of the common room, or present anywhere, I still wanted to give her a song, and to have seen her with this song.”
They tell me how poorly
I am at understanding
They tell me to wither and to watch tv
I wonder when will they decide
To close the curtains of my window life
Or will they keep me
Silently a waiting
These words
Spilled on the paper
Build a way from home
Van den Hoogen’s warm folk sound shines bright throughout “Television,” which she describes as a happy/sad goodbye song. It’s also evidence of her creative vision as a producer.
“Throughout the whole song through you’ll hear, or feel, a heartbeat punch. At the end there’s two lines of the Sylvia Plath poem Death & Co., ‘The frost makes a flower, the dew makes a star, the dead bell, the dead bell.’ And the heartbeat – the punch of the drum – stops. Those are the small musical things that are hidden inside of these songs that you don’t have to notice, but I think it’s what gives them some more meaning. It’s not really a fairytale, but it has some mystery.”
The frost makes a flower
The dew makes a star
The dead bell
The dead bell
And somebody is done for
Wistful and wondrous, Rosemary & Garlic’s latest single really does take our breath away.
It’s undeniably poignant, but equally enriching in its portrait of a life’s retrospective. “These words, spilled on the paper, build my way from home“; distance (from us, from the present) is inherent to the narrator’s experience, and yet this song itself is up-close and intensely intimate. We don’t get to see everything she sees; we don’t get to learn or know all the things she knows – and that’s the point. Those memories are hers; she sits in a corner, physically detached from one realm whilst she is utterly immersed in one that is hers and hers alone.
As enchanting as it is breathtaking, “Television” offers a refreshing perspective on memory, where and how we find meaning in our everyday, and the special moments that make up a lifetime.
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Stream: “Television” – Rosemary & Garlic
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? © Gema Perez
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