ap_lit_creative_project_klara_v3.mp3 |
VERSE 1: If I had told you A fairytale pairing Was a boy and a girl And their forever, declaring That they’d be the ones To beat the impossible odds It’d seem unrealistic Two kids in love who don't Know what they’re feeling But they fit like a glove On a frostbitten hand Something I’ve never seen here before | CHORUS: And they promised that they’d stay And their hearts would never change Now they’re never hand in hand There must be something I don’t understand Oh he said their love would last Though he leaves her in the past And they promise that they’ll somehow be near What am I possibly missing here |
VERSE 2: Maybe I was mistaken And love is so good that it Stays firm, unshaken ‘Cause they said it would And instead of the person We love the pictures we paint in our heads But sometimes it seems Like it’s purposefully hard For the purest of dreams To come true without scars But the sun won’t let that happen He’s kind, and he’s merciful, right | CHORUS: Oh, they promised that they’d stay Could it be their plan has changed? But if she’s still happy and safe, This can’t be the end, oh there must be a way One day I’m sure they’ll reconnect In some time, they’ll meet again Love hasn’t died, if they want, they’ll still try Like Coffee Lady and Raincoat Man |
She’s irreplaceable, this I am sure of
So why are they leaving? What’s the allure of
Pursuing unknowns when you have this at home
What if love isn’t what they’re looking for?
Yet I still recall they were made for each other,
Maybe it’s just a brief, fleeting cloud cover
All that’s left is to hope for the best
…At least I will
Link to lyrics + annotations
In Fitzpatrick’s review of Klara and the Sun, she states that Klara’s final statement on the nature of love and humanity is indicative of her misunderstanding love. “Klara herself has been excluded from acts and feelings of genuine love, and…she has not really understood the other characters in the novel, whose expressions of love are deeply flawed.” (Fitzpatrick). “What is Love?” is a musical representation of this misunderstanding that uses it to hint at Klara’s underlying humanity. Through her perspective in Josie and Rick’s relationship, we are given insight on Klara’s hopeful nature and her earnest belief in the power of love. Her own understanding of love is flawed, but the seeming irrationality in how she perceives love is a very ‘human’ thought. Although Klara is an AF – and thus, the only non-human character – she seems to be the only character that relies on hope, even in a time when the human characters have lost it. Thus, the optimism that grounds Klara’s misunderstanding of genuine love makes us question: does Klara’s misunderstanding of love make her, at some level, human?
Klara’s understanding of love seems to be a rather cliché one – that “love…/stays firm unshaken” simply because there was a promise made between Josie and Rick. She struggles to understand how the two can fall apart even after the promise they made as children. (“Something…that’s been worrying me…Rick and Josie still show kindness to each other. And yet, they’re now preparing such different futures” (287).) As a result, she attributes their fallout as “a brief, fleeting cloud cover” that will eventually pass when the two find each other again. “Despite everything”, she believed that “their love would last.” (289). I tried to reflect this sentiment in the musical content of the song. Written in 6/8 time (almost as a waltz) and blurring the lines between G major and E minor, tried to make the harmonic structure fragilely beautiful and emotionally expressive. Even in the chorus, where Klara claims that she is “sure they’ll reconnect”, there is still a lingering uncertainty to the music – it never resolves perfectly. There is always the idea that the hope she has for their relationship is something irrational and uncertain.
However, there is something in this hope that makes her uniquely different – if not uniquely human. Rick and Josie have both given up on hoping that love can destroy the barriers of class. (“It couldn’t have worked out, me going to college, trying to compete with all those lifted kids. I’ve got my own plans now, and that’s how it should be.” (288)). However, Klara is the one who believes that love could maybe reunite them even after this separation (“Josie and Rick might once again meet as the Coffee Cup Lady and Raincoat Man had done" (289). The optimism she has in the face of tragedy seems to be something familiar to us as uniquely human. Similarly, the hope and reliance that she has on the sun (“But the sun won’t let that happen / He’s kind and he’s merciful…right?”) resembles a hope in the divine that we also supposedly only see in humanity. Thus, the song tries to communicate that there may be something in this irrational hope that makes Klara more human-like than we had presumed, and asks us to rethink how our definition of love impacts how we understand humanity.