Ocean Tides us Over with Cayendo and Dear April- A review.
Frank Ocean has answered our desperately self isolated prayers, releasing two tracks on all streaming platforms, ‘Cayendo,’ and ‘Dear April.’
These are acoustic versions of songs formerly debuted at a PrEP club event in New York City last year, yet until this week were not available to stream. The songs were previously only available on vinyl.
‘ ”Cayendo” is a present participle form of the Spanish verb “caer”, which means “to fall” or “fall down”.’ :
https://open.spotify.com/track/72794Eag03xdy7TO0KNuid?si=N5F910eORm-dpIJiatWPvQ
Echoing Sade’s ‘Love is Stronger than Pride,’ the Louisiana singer sings, ‘You know too much, I can’t be proud, I still really, really love you.’ Both of these songs discuss overcoming feelings of jealousy and selfishness, putting love first and letting it take hold over everything else.
He also sings in Spanish, ‘Si esto no me ha partío', ya no me partiré nunca,’ meaning, ‘If this hasn’t broken me yet, I will never break.’ (Step back, Duolingo.) The song discusses suspicions of infidelity in a relationship, but Frank grits his teeth and lets it happen, he cares for his lover too much to let it get in the way. It reflects the track on his Blond album titled ‘Self Control’ in which he sings, ‘Keep a place for me,’ conveying that he would literally lie with both his lover and the person they are cheating with.
The lyrics are heart breaking, but the guitar is so soft, the vocals floating in and out like dreams, visiting us in this moment of panic we’re all in, calming us as though to say, ‘Remember music? Relationships? All of this is still here, and it’s waiting at the end.’ It gives the listener a sense of normality, a history to ponder over, to remember the kinds of issues we as humans faced before all of this happened, how now is a better time than ever to voice how we feel to each other, to be true, however hurtful it can be for us.
‘Dear April’ discusses a relationship that will never be the same again:
https://open.spotify.com/track/62ljuuXo0zrcrtJnnOhfxT?si=hA6yzTzSRGeMUGOT0eaOEw
We are left to assume that this is about the same relationship we’re hearing about in ‘Cayendo’ seeing as the two were released as a package.
Supported by the same raw, scratchy guitar strums, Frank sings, ‘Dear April, are you watching him dance?’ the rest of the song a run on sentence from this, ‘Take us through it, And wake us up again, And what we had won't be the same thing now.’
Songs of pain or heart break can sometimes make the experience worthwhile, if it can help other people dealing with the same thing, but I’d hope the singer is hurting significantly less now. Listening to these tranquil tunes can help tide us over during the next however-many-weeks of lock down boredom.
And to the artists hoarding music during this time, release it if you can, it’s keeping us going.