Set the scene, an autobiographical album in the style of a musical, filling me with every emotion, including hope. Orchestral melodies, booming vocals, jazz, swing, and intense emotional lyricism fill every second of This Music May Contain Hope. With 17 songs, two double-sided records, and an act for each season, this might be one of the most interesting and genius pieces of media I’ve ever consumed.
In a stage directive tone, she opens the album with the track, “Intro: The Girl Under The Gray Cloud.” We begin in Paris at 2:27 am, the city of lights feeling dark around RAYE. Continuing her narrative, she sets us in the act of “Autumn”. She tells us about a woman, herself, leaving a bar after drinking to fill an emotional hole. When narrating this, she could be explaining her previous struggles with drinking, which was a theme used in her debut album. Her dress was red, eyebrows plucked, and she wore false lashes, symbolizing her effort on her appearance, while stating that no one noticed. RAYE follows that line with “she is no stranger to rejection”, which she isn’t. In the past, RAYE’s old label kept her music hidden away, leaving multiple full albums sitting unreleased in a folder on someone’s desktop. The title of the song gives us a metaphor for being stuck in a constant state of gray. I picture this song as a girl walking through the city with a cartoon storm cloud following above her, the cloud being the ongoing and endless struggles she’s feeling. Closing the opening track, she lists a recipe for “The Girl Under The Gray Cloud”, symbolizing the multiple triggers that took place to “be the catalyst”. The final piece to the puzzle, the missed call from her grandma saying “Call me, please, we need to pray.” Previously RAYE has mentioned her grandmother is her “best friend. I call that lady every night. We pray together, we talk about life together. That’s my rock.” Missing this call sent all of the previous afflictions into orbit, causing the ultimate storm cloud to strike “The Girl Under The Gray Cloud”, transitioning us into “I Will Overcome.”
We’re introduced to track two with a short poetic start as RAYE reads, “There’s a thin grey veil over her horizon / The wall between hope and despair / She exists behind it / She will overcome”. This intro makes me think of the album cover and the gray sky filling it, while RAYE is pulling open the sky to reveal the vibrant blue, showing “The Girl Under The Gray Cloud” will overcome her distress. We find a call back as we enter the first verse, she’s recalling her time in Paris after having too much to drink; feeling like she might trip on the uneven concrete while trying to make it back to her hotel. She comments on how Paris’s cobblestone streets carry “phantom of a past love” in the cracks. This past love is likely the same from her previous songs on other albums. She was so in love with this man that after their breakup she now associates the city of Paris with him, he lingers there still. RAYE states that “some people say I remind them of Amy,” but comments on the fact that while people say this, they also treat her and comment about her the same way, hating and pushing her down. She continues to repeat a single word after every verse, “anyhow.” To her this word is the hope that she will overcome, stating that there’s another way, “anyhow.” She connects this song to one of the following, “Click Clack Symphony” where she fakes a smile, but here she says everyone is broken, but she’ll hide it.
“Click Clack Symphony”, the fifth track on the album, featuring Hans Zimmer, situated in winter, starts with a statistical message, the chances of you being born and the insane probability that took place to make you. It is a 1 – 400,000,000,000,000 chance to “be you”. She makes this connection not to show us how unlikely it is for us to be created, but rather to show us how lucky we are and to use this life and live it to its fullest.
To close out the song we get another monologue backed by the incredible composition created by Hans Zimmer. RAYE talks about the season feeling cold and dark, winter, and how she feels like she’s gone backward in fighting her multiple ailments that she hoped to overcome. She reinstates that everything is going to be alright multiple times, like a manifestation. In the final outro, RAYE explains her outlet for emotion, music, with a swelling symphony behind her. “She puts her headphones in” as a coping mechanism saying, “and there she danced under the weight of her clouds”. At this moment, she felt for the first time, hope. She wrote a sort of paradox, an impossible hyperbole, holding on and letting go. Exemplifying her need to let go of her worries and fears, but keep her support system close. The final line of “Click Clack Symphony” reflects the winter and cold, telling us that “the cold doesn’t last.” It is temporary. It teaches us how to love and live, it enables us to long for a “warmer” time. Finally, we finish with the largest, most powerful symphonic melody I’ve heard since Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar soundtrack, proving he’s still as incredible and talented as ever.
Although there’s no “title track” I think “Life Boat” is what could be just that. It’s a song about her family, and incorporates a small voice note from her late grandfather, who after recording it sadly passed away only three days later. During a livestream, RAYE stated that “this music really does contain hope, because I’m so grateful that I got that, and then that’s on this song, and it will be on my album forever.” Including this memo, her grandfather,and the family she loves, were immortalized in her music forever.
“Fields” is a song about family, love, and looking at ourselves. I originally didn’t think I needed to include this track, not because I didn’t like it, but because I would perpetually skip it. I skipped the song because it made me look at myself and reflect. It talks about asking ourselves “where did all the time go.” RAYE looks back at her childhood when her mom would tuck her into bed. This is something that now I look back at and miss. I’m 12 hours away from my home, from my parents, sister, and grandparents. I miss running through the halls of my house, riding on the swiffer while my grandma mopped the floor, playing chef with my grandpa, and playing with Barbies with my sister, Claire. The song talks about forgetting to call your grandparents, not forgetting out of lack of love, but getting caught up in your now and forgetting the people that were in your past, who shaped and molded you into the person you’re becoming. Again, as I sit here tears running down my face, I resonate with this. I often find myself too caught up in what I’m doing to make time for the people that really matter in my life. This song gave me a reality check. It woke something up in me. It made me realize that these articles I’m writing, these editorials I’m working on, all of my projects I’m doing should never take precedence over the people whom I have limited time left with. So to those of you who are fortunate enough to still have your grandparents around, take the time out of your busy lives to make a phone call, a facetime, anything. If you take anything away from reading this article, I ask that it’s to make time for your family.
“Fin”, to end, is the end of her album, and just like the album, this is the end of my article. While at the end of RAYE’s record she thanks every single person that contributed, helped her, or did ANYTHING in this process over a four and a half minute monologue listing names on names on names, I won’t be doing that. However, I will leave you with my closing thoughts on This Music May Contain Hope. This album has been one of the most incredible and jaw dropping pieces of media I’ve consumed, and I’ve heard the same saying from my friends who I made listen to it in its entirety. I don’t think I’ve ever heard something like this, especially from an artist, who by no means is a small artist, has just started taking off. Making something like this takes a huge risk. You have to ask yourself, Will the audience understand what I’m saying? Will they like each song and how can I keep them entertained, while still saying what I need to? All of these questions were answered in the production of this album, and they were answered in the best way possible. When the Grammy’s roll around next year, I will be dumbfounded if This Music May Contain Hope isn’t up for album of the year. To me this music DID contain hope and I hope that you also listen to it in its entirety, and find the same hope I found.
Words and Graphics by Connor Crankshaw