By Hannaan Fuad
Edited by Wan Nur Amrina
Picture credit to Spotify
You should listen to Innocence by Fools Garden because it’s great!
The song opens with a guitar sequence that immediately brings up a certain kind of feeling when listening to it. For me, it’s nostalgic. The melody of the electric guitar makes me reminisce about my childhood memories. When my mom prepared a fun dinner in the open air on the veranda or when my dad held my hand as we crossed the street to pray Maghrib at the mosque. All those fond memories I had when I was a child. I don’t know what exactly it is about that guitar sequence that makes me feel this nostalgic, but it does. Maybe it’s because I’m already influenced by the title of the song itself that makes me think of a time when I was still ‘innocent’ and ‘pure’.
The lyrics are another side of the story. While the melody makes me reminisce, the lyrics slap me with the bitter truth, that I’m no longer the innocent child I once was, that now I’m riddled with confusion and uncertainty. “So many thoughts in my head, I don’t know where to begin. Can’t find the words to describe, cannot explain what I mean.” That’s exactly what I’m feeling half the time nowadays. The stark contrast between what I’m feeling induced by the melody and what I’m realising through the lyrics creates an ambience that strangely enough, I find comfort in. Maybe physically, right now, I’m alone, but in spirit, I’m not. Others are experiencing this, too, right? The confusion, the loneliness, the inability to let go of the past, and the reluctance to step into the future: the loss of innocence. We all experience this at some point in our lives, right?
Another reason that might have influenced me to put this song in a special place in my heart probably because of the visual imagery used in it. Rain, storm, thunder. It’s brilliant because it’s simple: I love rain. I am grateful to be given the privilege of being able to find comfort in the rain. For all pluviophiles outside, hey, who knows? You might like this song too because of this.
Just like what the lyrics say: “Now the rain set in, and it makes me wonder,” the rain definitely provides a space for my mind to wander around. My mind flies around in the rain, visiting the past, travelling to the future, seeking the deepest corners of my heart, and rummaging through the contents, where has my innocence gone to? Another part that strikes a chord in me is the line: “I fear the consequence.” As a child, not many things were done with the consequence in mind. Now, consequences are all that we can seem to think about. Is not thinking of consequences seen as innocence?
The song ends with an ambiguous line: “Give me reason to live.” It’s ambiguous because on the other hand, I feel like the line is sad. It’s like someone slowly letting go of the rope to be swept away by the current. Giving up. On the bright side, it also hints at hopefulness. Hoping that life is still worth living. There must be reasons why life is worth living, right? Thankfully, while I like the line at the closing of the song, I’m not struggling to live. It’s another privilege of mine in which I am granted a mind where I’m not considering death. At the end of the day, I know I have God. All this confusion and uncertainty are ultimately to see if I can find Him at the end of it all. Remember to rely and come back to Him. Somebody I knew once wrote something that sums up the nature of humans which is the never-ending internal struggle of man:
“I’ve turned into a monster countless times, but countless times also, I remember I have God”
After all, life in this world is but a temporary stop for us to do our best to come to the realisation of the Truth of Life before we meet Him at our final destination. All these struggles and confusion today are opportunities for us to do just that.
The song is great.
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