I guess it can't be helped, it's just a matter of when
Do you think she'd notice if I never bloomed again?
As my roots grow tangled, letters rotting on read
I just close my eyes as I get stuck within my head
Late nights, alone
The sapling prays to grow, to sow, to see you through the phone
Through paths unknown
My heart elopes by prose
Hello
Awarded best in show
My inking slows
And we're running in circles again
A worn out plea for anything to prove this poem complete
I've come to see
That if it's between you and me
Words won't get through to anyone lost in the flower buds
It's only three small words that I'm desperate to hear
But I can't be certain if you're always nowhere near
If the sun grew cold, proving all that I fear
If I had your blessing, then it all would dissappear
But I feel so stupid 'cause you feel the same
And when I water the roses I can't trust you to stay
So here I lay 'neath the shimmering moon
Just a love struck fool
What do I do but wait for you?
Late nights, inert
Rehearsing every word, unheard, a sonnet silent blur
& sure it hurts
These fingertips covered in dirt
Still digging for a love returned, a single sordid verse
It's only three small words that could make me run away
Moving soil like mountains, for a chance at brighter days
But the eight small letters never show me their grace
Kiss a rose or push daisies under skies forever grey
And I feel so stupid 'cause you feel the same
And when I water the roses I can't trust you to stay
So here I lay 'neath the shimmering moon
Just a love struck fool
What do I do but wait for you?
People come and surely they go
Flowers wilt and surely they grow
Oh my heart, don't spare me the truth
When I bloom, it won't be for you
People come and quickly they go
Right through my heart, will I ever grow?
I guess it can't be helped, it's just a matter of when
If she just won't notice, then I'll take it on the chin
If our roots grow separate, if the roses stay dead
I can plant new seeds and pen tomorrow's flower bed
And I feel so stupid 'cause you feel the same
And when I water the roses I can't trust you to stay
So here I lay 'neath the shimmering moon
Just a love struck fool
What do I do but wait for you?
People come and surely they go
Flowers wilt and surely they grow
Oh my heart, so sure of the truth
When I bloom, it won't be for you
People come and quickly they go
Soon comes the spring, these roses will grow.
Taking so much will power not to just scream and yell and cry over this song I love it so much
I want to use this song to highlight a really important part of making Vocaloid music: tuning. Being that these are essentially vocal models based off a real voice (a real singer, in GUMI's case), there are a lot of parameters to tweak and set. Everyone does it slightly different to suit the music or their own style, and this is what allows the models to be used for a variety of different songs instead of just "vocaloid music". In the case of Water The Roses, the person who tuned it really emphasized GUMI's vocal ability to sound super strong on the really high notes, and overall she just sounds really nice in a way that's difficult to recapture, uniquely deavestated and powerful and yearning which makes me tear up every time.
The tuner was ..."CheezItsAreYummy". I love internet usernames. Anyway, I looked this person up, and they're actually an alias for CircusP, who did the tuning for ECHO and Crystalline, two of the best and most iconic GUMI English songs, which is when everything clicked.
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Aside from the tuning, the lyrics themselves are so evocative and powerful and bittersweet: "My heart elopes by prose", "words won't get through to anyone lost in the flower buds", "The eight small letters never show me their grace", "Flowers wilt, and surely they grow", and of course "When I bloom, it won't be for you"??? Like, hello? It's beautiful?? And contrast that with the hard-hitting straightforward chorus "I feel so stupid 'cause you feel the same", and "I lay 'neath the shimmering moon, just a love struck fool", with the huge swells of just "oh!", it's just perfectly constructed. The theme of roses and flowers being used to represent relationships, and roots being used to reference long-term relationships, with the resolve being able to plant new flowers and grow them again as a way to reference moving on from a long term relationship is just AAHH!!! It's So Good. The set up particularly with "Oh my heart, don't spare me the truth" is so relatable to me in particular because I've had that feeling of not wanting a relationship to be over, not wanting to admit that I'm going to have to move on. Where "When I bloom, it won't be for you" is equal measures reassuring and deavestating.
It's a feeling and a mood that I can only best describe as "powerful". There's so much emotion to it, but it's emotion that's messy and complex and hard to point or define anywhere. And this is without even getting into the music video, with its beautiful art, its references to toxic flowers, its use of flowers to spell out the phrases "I love you", "I miss you", and "I still love you", just adding on to the pain. aaaaaaaaaa I love this song so much, it makes me cry and feel heartbroken every time I listen to it and I really want to share it because of that. I was waffling on wether or not to include this for a long while but I eventually decided to include it because it's just so good.