“Undertow” by Sara Bareilles: The Creation of, And the Keeping Alive of, Memories of Togetherness

March 3, 2011 at 7:05 pm, by Jonah Rank

I recently fell in love with “Undertow” from Sara Bareilles’ first CD, Careful Confessions (fun fact: it came out in selected venues in 2004, three years before the singer-songwriter became known for her “Love Song” off of Little Voice, Bareilles’ major label debut).

“Undertow” begins with under-tones: a solo bass guitar, smoothly sliding, gliding along an empty, depressed wall of sound—that is, until it is joined by the sparse but powerful spirit of Sara Bareilles’ voice, and the song gradually builds with the accompaniment of the remaining rhythm section, plus several layers of Bareilles’ brilliant background vocals. This crescendo in particular feels to me like an aural painting of the universe prior to Creation. We read in Genesis 1:2: “The land was unformed and void, and a darkness was upon the surface of the deep, and a Divine spirit hovered above the surface of the water.” Whenever I hear the first 38 seconds of the song, I hear “The song was unformed and void, and a darkness was upon the surface of the deep bass, and a voice hovered above the surface of the fluid sound.” The song doesn’t take 7 days (it’s much shorter: about 5 minutes), but the song develops as it gradually introduces new timbres into the fray, finally exploding with a crash cymbal (a big bang?) at 1:23, and again at 2:02. Even creation has its own echoes, its own aftermath, its own undertow.

The gist of the “Undertow” of which Bareilles sings is not really about creation though. Bareilles sings of “the taste of something so sweet” that leaves her with the “undertow” of longing for one more intimate moment; she couldn’t “find a better man to let [her] go.” And on top of this, Bareilles plays Eve in the Garden of Eden, experiencing this lust for the first time (“I don’t know why I must ask for the forbidden fruit. / I saw the snake in the grass, but I had bitten too soon”). The newness of the situation makes Bareilles’ Eve surprised and infatuated with her memories of being together with her lover: her undertow is the remnant of a lustful deveykut (“togetherness,” or “union,” or literally, a “cleaving”).

Although there is an air of romance in the lyrics, “Undertow” itself can easily pass as a meditation on the surprising longing we are left with after a profound moment of deveykut with something sacred (whether that be romantic love, plutonic friendship, God, art, or something else). In reviewing The Scottsboro Boys, I spoke of techiyyat hammetim (“the reviving of the dead”) in terms of the deceased artist living on through the art she or he had given to the world. But I think of techiyyat hammetim also as the way in which those persons and experiences who are no longer with us in the moment still find ways to stay alive in our memories. Techiyyat hammetim is the undertow: it is both that emotion that died and that emotion living on inside us.

“Undertow” begins with the ru’ach elohim (“Divine spirit”) that is merachefet al peney hammayim (“hovering above the surface of the water”); Bareilles then animates the gradual creation of the universe in which Eve bites the “forbidden fruit” and suffers “the undertow” after a moment of deveykut; and, finally, we hear the bittersweetness of Eve’s lust dying away as the band fades out around the 4-minute mark, while Bareilles quietly and repeatedly pleas “Take my pain away.” The lusting is now dead—along with its memory—and the listener now suffers the undertow of a catchy song that leaves your speakers and enters your brain.

It is not much of a coincidence that “Undertow” is one of the first songs I selected for iTunes to play after I had heard that my great-aunt Annette Kaplan had passed away. Beneath it all, “Undertow” is a song of lament for all that we lose, and it’s a celebration for all that we once gained. “Undertow” is techiyyat hammetim of fleeting sacred love in our lives, before and after, all rolled into one.

The “Undertow” is a memory and a blessing. Listening to this song on January 22 reminded me of how very cherished Annette was in the lives of her family and friends. May all our memories of the special moments and persons in our lives be blessings. May the wonderful memories my family retains of Annette Kaplan be for a blessing. Yehi zikhram barukh—may their memory be for a blessing.

May we each come to know a bittersweet “Undertow” so that we never fully lose the good that comes our way.