It’s always hard to know exactly what a musician means by a song at first listen, unless if the musician in question has explained the song. Sometimes even the musician has no idea what the song means exactly. Also, to use a quote of Jean Paul Sartre’s about literature, a song’s meaning becomes the listener’s own and not the musician’s when it is heard. Great songwriters seem to be great at offering ambiguity, letting a listener interpret a song, and also being direct about the song’s subject and being topical.
Lianne LaHavas’s song “Green & Gold,” on her most recent album Blood, is a narrative hymn to her love for Jamaica and because it is both not traditional about the sound of loving a homeland (does not use quintessential Jamaican rhythm) and direct by using the words green and gold to invoke the Jamaican flag all the while using lyrics that allow for enjoyable ambiguity has the components of a great song. It is one of the most remarkable songs of diaspora in general and Jamaican diaspora in particular in recent years.
I’m looking at a life unfold
Dreaming of the green and gold
Just like the ancient stone
Every sunrise I know
Those eyes you gave to me
That let me see
Where I come from
LaHavas’s song details a young woman’s relationship in hymn to her mother’s homeland: mythical Jamaica. It is an honest song and therein lies the value of its lyrics: it explains a passionate relationship honestly and with erudition. For example, it is honest about a woman’s questions about self (staring at my nose / in the mirror.) The words flag or country are not used and this lets the narrator’s humanity seep through and allows for this song to be a love song to any listener. Rhythmically, it burns both slowly and well.
It is not the very first Jamaican diaspora song; even Bob Marley belonged to the Jamaican diaspora in England for some time. Diaspora songs generally make it to commercial radio as pop songs. This song is art pop. Ever so often a musician claims two homelands and it thrills for a second but the song is never really an art pop song about being from there but not living there.
Diaspora is a condition shared by millions if not billions of humans and is very much a part of the traditional human condition. LaHavas’s treating the subject is a sign of her art’s maturity and her understanding of human society and human history – the pop narrative that I am rooted in something similar to my neighbor is not the truth. On the contrary, singing each other’s truth is what will lead us to understanding our habitat and communing with it beautifully through music.
The album in its totality is a solid album. “Green & Gold” is the album’s most significant song because of its audacity of being truthful and human. It is not it’s most popular though and that’s alright. It’s a song to make a note of however as the rhythm or melody of human melody – that once upon a time a little girl in wealthy country was introduced to her mother’s less wealthy homeland and from her mother’s homeland found a sense of self strong enough to become song.
Author: Adolf Alzuphar
Loved your article. Moved my heart. I’ve just found this song from the nowhere (actually by looking for “colours” in songs with Google), and I love it, listened to it a dozen times a day. I thought, that the singer might originate from my country (we have the surname “Havas”, means “snowy”), and I was surprised to see her being black. And now I understand the lyrics and the motivation and some of the emotions behind it. Thx. Big Thx.