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  • Writer's picturejason

Seal, "Newborn Friend"

Oh, Seal, no. What are you singing about? Don't wash your face (or your faith) in dirty water! Don't dance with a total stranger and hold them in your arms! And what are you doing, smoking a cigar in your video? That's lung damage at the best of times, let alone in a respiratory-disease pandemic! What do you mean, "hell, there can be no danger"? You're practically a walking health hazard -- get thee behind me! (At least six feet, please.)


But please do keep on rocking with this joyous, blue-skies-ahead song. Do keep on chanting for happiness (I used to hear it as jumping for happiness, which worked just as well for me). I have no idea what you like to chant -- a profound spiritual mantra, or a list of ingredients to shrimp gumbo, or the lyrics to Trio's "Da Da Da" -- but whatever it is, I'm all for it.


Just as I'm all for your quintessentially 1990s rehearsal-footage video with its hilariously "handwritten" computer font; and the beautiful harmonies you make with your backup singer (who the Internet seems to think is Susannah Melvoin, twin sister of Wendy from Prince's Revolution, though I haven't seen official confirmation so far); and, most of all, the mix of vulnerability and optimism that pervades all your music (including this song), no matter how vague your lyrics get: that intimation of renewal and rebirth, the constant willingness to risk hurt and embrace the world anyway, set to a pulsing club beat you can dance to.



Thanks, Seal. I needed that.

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Listen to the Spotify playlist here.

Watch the YouTube playlist here.

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