The song begins with an electronic opening that sound wise is almost comparable to a retro video game sound track. The electro then becomes the background sound to allow for the layers of acoustic guitar and Hannah Joy’s lead vocals to take centre stage. Her vocals give the song a softness and provide the listener with a gentle comfort. The instrumental sounds are almost unheard during the verses of the song allowing Joy’s vocals and the lyrics to become the focus. However, when the chorus hits the song hits home with its volume and power with Joy’s vocals being matched with the power of the guitar and drums, and her higher notes giving a haunting feel to the song that gets under your skin.
The focus of the song seems to be on Joy’s vocals and the lyrics within the song rather than its sound and with the vulnerability and openness that comes across within the lyrics it’s understandable why laying the focus on the words rather than the sound is seemingly important in the song.
The lyrics seem to be a look into the mind and into the thoughts and feelings that we all experience whilst diving into how we cope or don’t cope with what’s inside our mind. With lyrics such as ‘you say it’s alright as you keep it inside’ and ‘you shake, you never change’, the lyrics pick up on the habit that so many people exhibit of keeping their thoughts and feelings bottled up inside and never letting it out; and the way we always try to brush off any negative thoughts thinking they will go away and even though they never do we always try the same ‘solution’ hoping for a different outcome. There is an acknowledgment of the behaviour and a ‘calling out’ of this behaviour in the hopes it makes people realise it’s not healthy and it needs to change.
The song asks the question of why we have the way we do of bottling ourselves up and doing the same thing whilst expecting a different with the lyric ‘are you afraid to stop and find the reason why you can’t get away from it’ it’s very much an elephant in the room moment of why do we just ignore our thoughts or pretend we are fine when we aren’t and ultimately it’s down to fear and to our minds stopping us, but why shouldn’t we confront our problems and face them head on.
But although there is a sombreness to the song and a certain sadness and fear of the realisation of the darkness we all face. The song does have a positivity and it does offer hope to its listeners; the song goes on to say ‘you think you’re a black umbrella holding of the rain, I think you’re a silk white kite blowing off course again’ and in that lyric there’s suddenly hope and everything isn’t quite as bad as it seems. Sometimes all it takes is one person to tell you that things are okay, that you are okay and will be okay and that’s what this song does. Just because we ourselves think that when we have our problems we aren’t good enough, and that we are just a source of darkness trying to hold off the dark thoughts with little success it doesn’t mean that’s what we truly are; there is always someone out there that believes we are good enough. In reality we are the ‘white kite’ we are the positivity and the light in the darkness because the darkness is just a passing moment, it’s not forever as long as we don’t allow it to be.
The lyrics feel like a representation of the battles we face with our own minds, and it’s a reminder that yes we do have our bad days and our dark moments. But we can’t let those days or those moments define us or define who we are, because we are still the white kite even if we don’t always feel like it; and the darkness will pass and the light will return we just have to allow ourselves to have our dark moments and to be vulnerable, in order to get back to the positive and strong true versions of ourselves.
Middle Kids have created an emotive power hit that will be a go to sound for fans when they need to feel like someone understands or they just need to get away from the world for a while. Cellophane (Brain) is a song that embodies the emotional warfare in our minds at times of darkness whilst also offering power and hope that things can and will get better and that you have the strength to get through this. It’s a song that gives listeners a means of escape; it allows you to embrace the darkness, but also confront it and move on from the dark moments and onto the better and brighter ones. It’s a must listen for anyone whether they can connect with the song or not.
-Georgina Shine
@imjustabandgeek
Image: Spotify
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