Photo courtesy of The Come Up Show, Flickr
On Oct. 2, English singer/songwriter Ella Mai released her new single “Not Another Love Song.” This is her first release since her 2018 debut album “Ella Mai,” officially ending her two-year hiatus.
The message “Not Another Love Song” carries within its just under four-minute song can be considered to be the continuation of her song “Trip,” released Aug. 2, 2018. The song is about Ella holding back her emotions from her love interest. Throughout the verses of the song, she speaks on how she is too afraid to give her all to her lover, and she goes to say that this love is different than any other she has experienced in the past. This love is too good to be true, so she decides not to “trip” or be clingy.
Similar to its predecessor, “Not Another Love Song” caught my attention with the dreamy lyrics, tone and tune. The lyrics start with Ella being insecure about this love she has found. Ella sings, “Tell me am I foolish to think you’d meet me here.” Ella is second-guessing if she is truly an important person in his life.
Ella then sings, “I’m / Going down / ‘Cause I know that it’s you / I see in my dreams.” In this phrase, Ella is expressing that she’s falling hard for this man in her life. She thinks of him so much, he is now appearing in her dreams. Right after those lyrics, Ella quickly accepts her feelings and sings, “I’m / Going down / Let me drown / Over you / Living in my dreams.”
The chorus expresses so much passion with a combination of Ella’s beautiful voice and the lyrics, “I love the way you do it / Don’t stop, don’t wanna lose it.” Although Ella seems to have a lot of confidence during the chorus of the song, as listeners will notice that in the second verses she sings, “I don’t wanna mess this up / Could it be too much / To say I’m–” avoiding the word love, quickly moving on to her next sentence. I can see that Ella is too afraid of saying love because, like she said in her lyrics, she does not want to mess her relationship up.
When we get to the ending of the song, tension can be felt. Ella has just praised the man she desires with affection while her bridge and her chorus returns. The lyrics “I don’t wanna mess this up / Could it be too much / To say I’m–” represent her being too afraid to say that she may love this person. She holds back and goes on to finally sing, “I Just wanna know whassup / Do you feel it / Cause I think I’m in / Love.” This leaves us with the instrumental for a few seconds which I take as reflecting her thoughts.
From my interpretation, this round of the chorus was significantly different because you could feel her thinking during her first pause before saying love. I could feel Ella wondering if she should say it and questioning if she is sure. When she gets to her last few lyrics she is truly confident after thinking hard throughout this song and straight-up tells her man how she feels about him.
Earlier, I mentioned “Not Another Love Song” is a second part to Ella’s song “Trip.” I strongly believe in this, because character growth can be seen when listening to both songs back to back. “Trip” Ella does not want to show any affection to her man at all. She says things such as “I put my feelings on safety” and “I’ve been sippin’, that’s how I control / This feelin’, you keep givin’.” Two years later with her new single, we see Ella is no longer afraid to show her passion for someone she is in love with.
3/5 stars
ajones8@ramapo.edu
