Song of the Week #4 - "Fresh Static Snow" by Porter Robinson
Song of the Week #4 is "Fresh Static Snow" by Porter Robinson. I'm excited to finally share some of Porter's music as my song of the week. I've written about one of his other songs before: his phenomenal "Shelter", on which he collaborated with French electronic music producer Madeon.
"Fresh Static Snow" is the fifth song off Robinson's 2014 album Worlds. Worlds is a departure from the kind of harsher bass-heavy, high-BPM electronic dance music that Robinson produced early in his career. "Fresh Static Snow" is no exception. This is not dance music for the sake of dance music.
The beat is moderately paced, and though it still uses bass to provide its main hook, the song has a far more melodic and more artistic feel than his previous works once the vocals kick in. The vocals themselves are provided by Avanna, which is a part of the Vocaloid voice synthesizer program. In other words, it is a computer singing the song, not a human. Despite its 6-minute length, the song isn't lyrically complex. It consists primarily of one stanza repeated several times.
The singer in "Fresh Static Snow" cries for her complement, despite never knowing this person, because she knows this person exists, that this person is out there, doing their thing. Yet she'll never know who this person is, or even what their name is.
"Fresh Static Snow" is the fifth song off Robinson's 2014 album Worlds. Worlds is a departure from the kind of harsher bass-heavy, high-BPM electronic dance music that Robinson produced early in his career. "Fresh Static Snow" is no exception. This is not dance music for the sake of dance music.
The beat is moderately paced, and though it still uses bass to provide its main hook, the song has a far more melodic and more artistic feel than his previous works once the vocals kick in. The vocals themselves are provided by Avanna, which is a part of the Vocaloid voice synthesizer program. In other words, it is a computer singing the song, not a human. Despite its 6-minute length, the song isn't lyrically complex. It consists primarily of one stanza repeated several times.
You'd fit perfectly to me,"Fresh Static Snow" is a song about love, but with a twist. In the track commentary for "Fresh Static Snow", Robinson explained that the song is about an idea he was "obsessed with" when he was "at his loneliest": that somewhere out there, there necessarily exists one person who would make you happiest. The singer of "Fresh Static Snow" is speaking to the one person who would complete her, who would "fit perfectly" to her. The one who'd end the loneliness. The probability that you will ever meet this person is vanishingly small. There are billions upon billions of people in the world, any of whom could be this person, and you will only meet a small fraction of those people in your life. The realization of the vastness of the world is best captured by the neologism sonder, the definition of which I posted on this blog way back in July 2016.
We'd end our loneliness,
Melt this curse away.
Though I'll never know your name,
I'll cry for you the same.
The singer in "Fresh Static Snow" cries for her complement, despite never knowing this person, because she knows this person exists, that this person is out there, doing their thing. Yet she'll never know who this person is, or even what their name is.
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| The frozen white noise static snow, That is your memory, ... |
The frozen white noise static snow,*The image of "static snow" refers to that snowy, random white noise you see when you tune an old analog television to a channel on which no station is broadcasting. Among the massive crowd of people in the world, she's trying to tune her signal to the one who'd fit perfectly to her, but all she receives is static snow. However, the mere "memory" or understanding that this person exists is enough to make the person forever a part of the singer.
That is your memory,
And though I know we'll never meet,
You're ever part of me.
You'd fit perfectly to me,* Some people hear this line as "Don't step so lightly, static snow," which, in my view, is not as meaningful in context, as it shifts attention away from that beautifully melancholic image of "static snow". In this interpretation of the line, the singer may be asking her unknown counterpart to avoid "stepping lightly" so that she might more easily find him or her. Update 3/19/21: I recently bought Worlds on vinyl, and on the sleeve of the record, Robinson included the lyrics of all the songs, including "Fresh Static Snow". I can confirm that the sleeve does indeed have the line as "the frozen white noise static snow".
We'd end our loneliness,
Melt this curse away.
Though I'll never know your name,
I've cried for you the same.