Lyrically Speaking: Adrianne Lenker’s nostalgic melancholy at time passing in ‘Sadness as a Gift’
How do you neatly tie a bow around the monstrosity of heartbreak? That seems like an oxymoronic question, an impossible task, but it’s one that Adrianne Lenker was determined to grapple with and ultimately, unbelievably, succeed in accomplishing on ‘Sadness as a Gift’, the second track taken from her 2024 album Bright Future.
Of course, folk stars are no strangers to the odd painful truth or two, but these are typically resigned to the ageing relics like Neil Young as they impart the wisdom of a lifetime down on to the younger masses. Instead, Lenker managed to harness a misty-eyed wise nostalgia brand of her own all in the worldly space of just 33 years, making her reflections on the passing of time on ‘Sadness as a Gift’ ones that really shouldn’t hold as much of an emotional depth as they do.
Opening with: “You and I both know/ there is nothing more to say/ Chance has shut her shining eyes/ And turned her face away,” – a lyric, in my personal opinion, that is one of the most devastatingly beautiful lines in the entire history of song – Lenker borders in the liminal space of this being something between a break up ballad and a literary incantation. Setting up that stage, the metaphors keep on rolling like punches to the gut throughout the song, opening up a much more in-depth process while doing so.
In that vein, as much as this is a tune evidently exploring the notions of relationship heartbreak, it also heralds a certain degree of universality in its devastation – encompassing loss in every sense of the word, in whatever form that takes. “Been searching for your eyes/ All I see is blue skies/ And that old man beats his crooked cane/ It’s time to let go,” epitomise this idea perfectly, encapsulating an idea of grief that is all at once devastating, resigned, and then reconciliatory.
“The seasons go so fast/ Thinking that this one was gonna last,” Lenker muses, just after she reflects on: “Snow fallin’/ I try to keep from callin’/ Watch the spring turn to winter/ Fireflies all frozen,” in which her nostalgic melancholy at the passing of time truly comes to the fore. This is a cutting hurt, but it is one she knows she will have to live with for the rest of time and make her peace with, no matter how much the scar will still always sting.
That sense is most overtly highlighted in the subtle lyrical changes between the lines of the song’s three choruses, first asserting that: “You could write me someday and I think you will,” transforming into, “I bet you will,” before ultimately resigning to, “I hope you will.” It’s this almost imperceptible loss of confidence over time of hope of the relationship getting back on track that bears its most searing honesty; a trembling vulnerability that Lenker is pained to expose.
Ultimately, that leads to the title of the song when she sings: “We could see the sadness as a gift/ And still, feel too heavy to hold,” because, ultimately, sometimes it’s the most amicable relationship endings that carry the most weight. Lenker evidently doesn’t hate her former lover, just hates the fact that she has to face up to them no longer sparkling magic into her life – and the memories of what once was suddenly oppress like a ton.
‘Sadness as a Gift’ is not only a masterclass in storytelling, but ironically a gift in and of itself on how to process the inevitable heartbreaks that life can throw at us. Looking out on the landscape may not seem much help in the beginning, but watching the seasons pass by is what made Lenker reason with her fate, before penning her tale in devastating sonic form.
