The third single from Common Holly’s forthcoming album ‘When I Say To You Black Lighting’ is a mystical, hymnal thesis on the forever enduring cycle of love and loss. Anchored for the most part by a flute and Laurie Anderson-like vocal instrumentation, ‘Measured’ in its ups and downs, its starts and stops, most closely represents The Mamas & Papas take on ‘Dream A Little Dream of Me’. Rather than using those legendary words to symbolise the restarting of the cycle, the return to the verse, Common Holly aka Montreal’s Brigitte Nagar sings ‘Oh, I think we’ve been measured out for pain since birth.’

Each verse or cycle begins with the blossoming of love and ends with its deterioration. By the end, Naggar is tired “Why should I go in now / if it didn’t work then?” She ponders. In the end, our humanity gives us no choice but to re-enter battle even when we know pain, or more morbidly death, awaits us at the end. A tragedy Shakespeare would’ve been proud of.  

‘When I Say To You Black Lightning’ is out November 01 on Dalliance Recordings