NEWĀRK’s “Daffodils” is what a period of change sounds like when the person in it has stopped waiting for the big moment. Built on alternative hip-hop with live instruments underneath, the music is the right container for what NEWĀRK is doing in it: a song where the artist is talking themselves through a day, in the mountains, in the kind of weather where a walk is also a decision. NEWĀRK’s songs are described as scenes from films that do not exist yet, and “Daffodils” is the scene where the camera follows the speaker up a path, with the flowers at the edge doing the kind of work the speaker is trying to do.
The contradiction inside “Daffodils” is between the optimism the song asks for and the lost days the song also names. It reflects feeling confident one day and lost the next, and the optimism does not come for free. The daffodils are the answer the song keeps coming back to: small gestures of love and hope, the friends who keep showing up, the patience that does not announce itself. Alternative hip-hop with live instruments sits between the street and the room, and the song uses the same in-between to keep both the strong days and the lost days in the same frame.
“Daffodils” leaves the listener on the path, with the flowers, in the kind of weather that does not promise anything. NEWĀRK wrote the song during a period of change, and the song is what the period sounded like when the artist was honest about it. A summit is not promised. The next step is, and the daffodil at the edge of it.
