love, fear, insecurities, and any other things Niki puts in Anaheim.

 

credit to pinterest.

I still remember it well and clear when I first listened to the album on shuffle (I rarely listen to an album in an order) and brought directly to this song that I just knew this album's going to be the memories you don't want around.

I'm not a native English speaker and back then, my English's yet developed as good as how it is right now (maybe not really but I know damn sure it's at least got better). So when I listen to a song, I tend to always focused on the lyrics and its pronunciation so I would know what's being talked about in it. But, I can't do it this way with Aneheim. For its instrument in the background so distracting that even when I couldn't yet fathom its every bits, I already got all the goosebumps.

Niki's voice sounds so calm, light, even plain and just right contradicting with the heavy, gut-wretching lyrics. She killed me first by the very first verse, bringing the "In a perfect world, I'd kill to love you the loudest/But all I do is live to hurt you soundless." to the table and left everyone else dead.

I just knew it that Anaheim really is one hell of a ride giving not only the poetical lyrics but ALSO the DAMNED instrumental making me feeling all cold and shivering.

I have yet be in such a serious and dying relationship but, God how I can feel every guilt and fear of the narrator in this song. I've said it once but I will never stop saying how genius the lyrics are.

"Here you are, a hero/You wanna be my new home/But, baby let up/I won't ever recognize these roads." good God was it all really needed.

At first, I thought the narrator's just someone who's yet get over their past relationships and scared to start anew because they're scared to possibly hurt this new kind, patience, and all most understanding figure seeing how Niki's repeatedly sung the "I won't recognize these roads" and "I won't recognize this route" all for the same purpose.

But, later as my listening span wider, I come to understand how it seems to picturing more of the narrator's insecurities and their act of denying their very own feelings because they don't think they're capable of loving.

With every second swifts over lyric after lyrics, I have no doubt that the narrator's actually struggling with insecurities of their inability to show love and also their constant fear of loving not enough. How they fear that their partner was presumably only daydreaming because the idea of someone loving them is too surreal and unacceptable for them.

"Cause I have yet to know how to be mine/You can try to unearth this soul/I swear you'll hate what you find."

Reaching its end points, Niki seems to want us no rest by giving more bitter lyrics to choke in.

"I'd give anything to stop time/Commit to you and not crime/Against your truth and lose sight/Of every divide threatening to undo this story/But baby, I'm so sorry/I don't think that I'll ever recognize this route/'Cause I am lost, but not in you/Yes, I am lost, but not in you."

Depicting the horror struggle of the narrator's will to give a try to the idea of something new but again and again first defeated by their fear. There seems no glory and a happy ending in this song—only tears and weary bones.