Bodies In The Summer Breeze

Arlo Parks “Heaven”

There’s a sound in this song that first shows up at the 00:02 mark. I’m calling it a “sound” because I don’t know exactly what it is. It’s probably a vocal snippet that’s been processed through a few filters, but who knows. The mysterious quality is part of the allure, a lot of the reason it catches your ear. As it reoccurs, you sorta end up chasing it around the song. It shows up, it fades away, it reappears. It’s like an audio firefly flitting around the negative space of the song.

Obviously, there’s a lot more going on in the music. Arlo Parks is singing about a beautiful moment watching a friend DJ at Under the K Bridge park in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The beat is busy, but the song feels still, like she’s trying to inhabit a serene memory indefinitely. “Are you letting go? Do you just want time to freeze?,” she sing. “Well, I think sometimes it’s both, yeah.” She then sings something about knowing she can’t “catch a glimpse of heaven” and take it with her, but I think that’s basically what she’s done with this song.

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