A Perfect Song: Deaf Havana - Sinner

Deaf Havana very recently released a new album named RITUALS, and I love it, but in particular I'm hooked on the song 'Sinner'. I will probably include this song in my end-of-the-month post of five favourites, but I wanted to make a post about it now and talk a little bit about the specifics of what it means to me and why it hit me in that firework-esque way new songs sometimes do.

This post is illustrated by stills from the 'Sinner' music video.

This song has such an incredible feeling of release to it. It details this narrative of being a bad person, a 'sinner', and to me partly because of that religious connection it conjures up a picture of guilt and shame. The very first line of the song is 'I'm so pathetic for ever thinking I'd change' which quite clearly hints at that, but the song doesn't feel self-pitying. The lyrics, sure, are very focused on giving in to this inevitability of being an unchangeable person ('you can fall to your knees and pray / 'cause I'm a sinner now / and I won't be saved'), but the song's soundscape of buoyant choruses and soaring choir towards the end project this feeling of release. Of acceptance.

It's an exhilarating song to listen to, and it makes me consider the sheer level to which we gloss over our experiences, societally and individually. It gives me this feeling of being absolved somehow. It's so freeing to listen to a song that seems to acknowledge guilt in this way. It's such a deeply lonely emotion, inherently hidden away, but this song just blasts it open. It's so great.

I just love the combination of an acknowledgement of being a flawed and guilty person with a kind of almost celebratory resignation. Like you can know that you will never be a good or perfect person and let go of that. Those things won't wash away. So sing that chorus about it.

I love it.