Lilacs have a pretty limited blooming period – sometimes as brief as two weeks – which means that they are either nowhere or everywhere.
Out near where my parents live, there is a stretch during the spring where the smell of lilacs is almost overpowering. It’s like an olfactory firework, exploding brilliantly in a dark night sky and momentarily throwing its colour on everything else in sight.
And then, suddenly, the lilacs disappear, and everything smells normal again.
The lilac’s brief blooming is probably why it’s sometimes associated with youth or young love; fleeting things that poets love to write about. But the fun irony is that lilacs are in the same family as the olive, and there is nothing short-lived about olives. I have a jar of olives in my fridge that, I’m pretty sure, are older than the fridge itself.
But the other thing is that the lilac bush itself can live for up to 200 years. So while its blooms are intense and temporary, the lilac itself has an admirable permanence.
This gorgeous new song by Brooklyn producer G Mills has, for me, a feeling of both permanence and impermanence that fits perfectly with its title.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The sparkling guitars provide the blooms.
2. A deep, muted kick drum provides the roots.
3. There’s a hissing, crackling white noise behind everything that somehow manages to make the song sound fresh and antique all at once.
Recommended listening activity:
Watching drips of condensation make their way down the outside of your glass of iced water.