NATURAL CONCEPTION

Today in my class, we revisited Edgar Allen Poe's famous poem, The Raven which I read 7 years ago in high school. But it sounds so much more meaningful now. During those 7 years I came across a song called Kremlin Dusk....

Kremlin Dusk is written by Utada Hikaru inspired from that poem The Raven. Mr. Poe is Utada's favorite poet. They both share the same birthday as well!

His poems are very dark and sad... in The Raven, the author waits for his lover Lenore to come home, but his lover never did. Instead, a black Raven comes by his window and tells him nevermore...

in Kremlin Dusk lyric, it goes:

All along I was searching for my Lenore
In the words of Mr. Edgar Allen Poe
Now I’m sober and “Nevermore”
Will the Raven come to bother me at home?


The song is just about love, existence, loneliness, and heartache...

Born in a war of opposite attraction
It isn’t, or is it a natural conception?
Torn by the arms in opposite directions
It isn’t, or is it a Modernist reaction?

that part is my favorite in the song when the climax changes, she is just talking about how we all "should" go with what society tells us? why can't we be and do whatever we like? opposite attraction? does this have to always go with that? does man always have to be with woman? is that supposed to be "natural"? then what's NOT natural? so... she is being torned by all these ideas, torn by the arms of oppisite directions.

I am a natural entertainer, aren’t we all
Holding pieces of dying ember?
I’m just trying to remember who I can call
Who can I call

that's alo referring to artists and entertainers, in the Art world, we consider sadness and melancholy to be a good thing, whereas being said is usually seen in a negative light. Because back in the days great artists are always in a melancholic mood; in deep thoughts, which helped them create great work. So in that verse she is just saying this is what she does, she is just holding on to all of her melancholy (dying ember)... that is why entertaining and singing comes so naturally to her because she can relates to pain and lonesomeness. When you feel destructive inside, you get creative outside. Destruction leads to creation.

Lastly, I love how she keeps questioning:
is it like this? is it always the same?
when a heartache begins... is it like this?
and cleverly ends the song with,
if you like this, will you remember my name?
will you play it again, if you like this?

hehhe... of course I played the song AGAIN and AGAIN... it is one of my favorite Hikki songs ever. I listened to it back when it first came out 5 years ago, when I was coming of age, fitting into my own skin.

So I made an art piece inspired by this song and named it Natural Conception as a homage to the song:

(click to enlarge)
medium: spray paint, watercolor, color pencil, marker, construction paper, wite-out, graphite


it's cool to think now that I made an art piece inspired from Utada, and she made a song inspired by Edgar Allen Poe. It's sorta like, from artist to artist...


LIVE: the live arrangements of this song is incredible!