Hear Me Out: ‘Nearly Daffodils’ is secretly the saddest song by English Teacher
I was perpetually confused as a child when people insisted that The Smiths were miserable.
Too young to grasp the biting cynicism of Morrissey’s lyricism, I took the band at face value: to my ears, those upbeat, jangly guitar riffs were the sound of optimism itself, and as for the lyrics, slipping down side streets, running into town and calling someone “honeypie” all sounded rather wonderful too.
It was only as a teenager, after finally deciphering the words to ‘Panic’ (specifically the immortal instruction to “burn down the disco, hang the blessed DJ”), that I realised I had been drastically misguided. Johnny Marr’s buoyant guitar lines had lacquered the track in such a glittering pop sheen that the underlying chaos and societal malaise had slipped right past me unnoticed.
It takes a rare kind of band to fashion such a track, a sonic Trojan horse that smuggles existential dread into your soul via an infectious melody, but while it’s a trick usually reserved for the indie legends of the 1980s, Leeds’ English Teacher also managed to perfect it on their 2023 single, ‘Nearly Daffodils’, which kicks in with a propulsive, clicky snare, followed by soothing synths and jangling guitars that makes it feel radiant, brimming with the kind of breezy optimism that suggests a sun-drenched road trip.
You might assume vocalist Lily Fontaine’s mention of daffodil buds in the opening verse signals a celebration of spring, but a closer listen reveals a different story. “Mostly it feels like a waste / So much laughter uncanned / I’d forgotten the taste, don’t make me go back/ all the plans we tiptoed around in quiet hours, daffodil buds” she sings, a subtle nod to the nervous, tentative beginnings of a relationship that never quite caught fire, and the promise of the song quietly unravels as she continues, “There is a reason the first nine months doesn’t count / nearly daffodils”, a devastating eulogy for a romance that bloomed in the giddy heat of summer but withered before the spring arrived.
That modifier, “nearly”, is what makes it so woundingly sad, the idea that this couple came tantalisingly close to something beautiful, only to fall just a hair (or perhaps a few drops of plant-food) short. Shunning the soaring tropes of a heartbreak ballad, ‘Nearly Daffodils’ opts for a more subdued, creeping sense of melancholy, which, if anything, is more scary as it focuses on the quiet tragedy of unfulfilled potential and the gentle, agonising wilting of something carefully nurtured that simply refuses to grow.
Of the track, Fontaine said, “‘Nearly Daffodils’ is about heartbreak and acceptance of unfulfilled potential. How, no matter how much you may want something, no matter how much effort you may put into its growth or development, no matter how beautiful you can envision its fruition, life is a bitch and about as unstoppable as a freight train.”
The track’s closing line, “You can lead water to the daffodils, but you can’t make them drink“, cleverly twists the old adage about horses, emphasising Fonatine’s realisation that no matter how much care you give, growth cannot be forced, except, perhaps, with rhubarb.
‘Nearly Daffodils’ is a sparkling, instant indie classic that invites you to nod your head to a crushing meditation on almost-love, and is a standout track from a standout debut album, one that would eventually give Lily her flowers in a different way when it went on to win the band the Mercury Prize.
