First Impressions: “Courtly Love” by Violette Rain

The earth spins on its axis while it orbits around the sun, with the former due to inertia and the latter gravity. What if one or both stopped? Would a future band release The Dark Side of the Earth? Or would the world make like Dobie Gray and drift away? The atmosphere that supports life would peel off into nothingness, or so scientists claim, but what if, somehow, our spinning top of a planet wobbled not to a stop but instead slipped into reverse? Would we, collectively, be thrust into the Arthurian Age, when knights and knaves squared off over maids and maidens, and dragons roasted all but the pure of heart?

Such are the fantastical musings that came to me this morning, at any rate, while driving down the rain-slicked streets of my town. It helped, I’m sure, that Violette Rain’s “Courtly Love” provided the soundtrack to said excursion; as with her last single, “Forget-Me-Nots,” it conjures the myths and lore surrounding King Arthur’s court—and, too, Kate Bush. The music casts magical spells through the speakers, as do her soaring vocals, which fly higher than an eagle. Her lyrics, meanwhile, flit about and flirt with wanting more than the chaste affection a potential suitor has to offer. To borrow lyrics from the Marvelettes, “Life seems to be (just a dream)/A world of fantasy/When you’re young and in love….”