Come Back as a Flower | Stevie Wonder
Ethereal. I listened to this on my way into work, making way through the streets of Shoreline, into Ballard, into Fremont, feeling the delight-seeking fervor nestle into a reflective mood. The fervor permeated from the melody to my spine. Which was great, because I don’t want to delight too much in just the idea of the delight search. I would much rather experience these things and discover delight, or not, without any preconceived notion or shallow eagerness. So, in the case of “Come Back as a Flower”, I was an ingenue reborn (I had to look up ingenue, it sounded right, but had no idea why. It means a naive girl or young woman…appropro). I wonder if I can come back as a flower in this lifetime, right now.
…
Fast forward to September 24 2021, more than two years later from my Come Back as a Flower reflection, intending to listen to the entire album as Gay describes as “somewhat overlooked”. I am currently sitting on my partner’s bed, they are finishing notes from their clinical day. I am in a new city, no work, soon to be in school, processing the recent death and sickness of close family, and some loneliness for home. The first song, Earth’s Creation, has the synth vibes that yell ominously and prompt the question “what are you doing with your life”…not I language mind you, you language, because the song was talking to me with a boasting aching beat. Earth’s Creation is a title that demands big sounds to capture the oceans, cold mountains with crevasses, landscapes that can quake and be whipped by heightened winds. They all need boast and bellow and shake to be seen through ears.
The whole album is the ebb and flow of nature, from animal calls to thunder, it is magical. Despite my insecurities coming out from Earth’s Creation, the story line of this album is fully rich in its whole with songs I want to be my life’s soundtrack. I could decree it as such because it captures the ebb and flow of human emotion…so deeply entrenched in the earth.
[Book of Delights pg. 113 | No. 37 To Spread the Sweetness of Love]