Sval – (I Can’t Be Your) Medicine

“Let’s focus on the good bits, as there are a multitude of those.”

Tim: There are two things about this that will really annoy you, so I’ll warn you about them first: one, the effect in the video, which is even worse than a VHS filter, and two, the fact that the songwriters seem to think ‘medicine’ rhymes with ‘fine’ – which is doubly odd because one of them is the singer.

Tim: Do we blame the English language for being stupidly inconsistent? Hmm, maybe, though there’s definitely no excuse for the poor compression effect – and what I really don’t get about that is that this is just a lyric video, and there’s no reason whatsoever to have it there, as it’s not a reference to anything. So who decided it? And, more importantly, why? Is there a reason I’m missing?

Those two things aside, I really like this.

Tom: I have no issue with either of those things. At least the chromatic aberration and digital glitching is modern — heck, in thirty years’ time, that’ll be retro. And as for the rhyme, I’m not at all convinced that it’s intended to rhyme: I think it’s just a coincidence that the words happened to be spelled the same. I think it’s deliberately meant to break the rhyme scheme.

Does that help?

Tim: Hmmm…maybe – the annoying thing is that other lines in the chorus do end with a firm ‘I’ sound, so it’s not clear what there rhyme scheme is meant to be, but OH WELL let’s focus on the good bits, as there are a multitude of those. The gentle introduction of various instruments throughout the first verse works well, her voice is as lovely as ever, particularly when it’s heard in the almost a cappella bits of the chorus, and all in all it just…works, for me. I like it a lot.

Tom: Yep, agreed. It’s a lovely track, particularly that final chorus.

Tim: Just, agh, that rhyme.