Music Review: Spice Girls "Viva Forever"

Viva Forever
Album: Spiceworld
Year: 1998

Emma Bunton will continue to look for the same spark she felt with her summer romance five years ago in the yearning ballad “Viva Forever.”

Fairytale strings and misty “ahhs” open the single. It’s followed by a rapturous Latin guitar, setting a cherished tone. In the first verse, Bunton wonders if her first love thinks of the time they spent together. They talked about their insecurities and their philosophies. They both had big dreams and wanted to accomplish each goal they set themselves. They would talk and kiss as they took walks along the water. He was the only person who understood her. She opened herself entirely up to him without fear. By the end of the summer, he had her heart. They never got to see where it would’ve led, if she didn’t have to go back home.

“Do you still remember/How we used to be/Feeling together, believe in whatever/My love has said to me/Both of us were dreamers/Young love in the sun/Felt like my saviour, my spirit I gave ya/We'd only just begun.”

In the pre-chorus, she tells him goodbye but he will be with her forever.

“ Hasta Manana/Always be mine.”

In the chorus, she says she will look for him in her city on the off chance he could be there. It will be a lifetime search. In the meantime, she will grab each moment and take full advantage of it. It will be gone soon and not to be repeated again.

“Viva forever, I'll be waiting/
Everlasting, like the sun/Live forever/For the moment/Ever searching for the one .”

In the second verse, Melanie B says each compliment and promise has lingered in her memory. The softness of his hand upon her own gives her gooseflesh to the current day. Melanie Chisholm compares their relationship to a love song playing on the radio: unpredictable to when it will happen, plenty of excitement, and a disappointment when it ends.

“Yes I still remember/Every whispered word/The touch of your skin, giving life from within/Like a love song that I'd heard/Slipping through our fingers/Like the sands of time/Promises made, every memory saved/Has reflections in my mind.”

The pre-chorus and chorus are sung again.

The raptuorus Latin guitar has a solo.

In the third verse, Victoria Beckham says it feels like it didn’t happen. The only evidence she has are her emotions. Revealing her love story to someone will cheapen it and break the fantasy of it ever being real again.

“Back where I belong now/Was it just a dream/Feelings unfold, they will never be sold/And the secret's safe with me.”

The pre-chorus is sung again.

The chorus is sung twice to close the single.

While visiting her parents, her mom brought a box full of pictures from old vacations. In a photograph of her family at their beach house, there was a picture of her and her boyfriend taken during a sandcastle contest. The memories rushed back at a startling fast pace, disorienting her. Ever since then, he has been front and center in her mind. She has never found anyone that could make her laugh so hard one minute and cry the next.

Even though the group trade vocals, Bunton often gets the most. Her sweet vocals are speculative and idyllic. To this day, she turns a page in Time magazine, hoping to read one of his articles or flipping through the newspaper for his byline. She hopes he is doing well, wherever he is and has not lost his idealism.

The dreamy arrangement reflects an innocent time in her life, brightening each sunlit day she had with him and dimming the cold reality of the present.

“Viva Forever” is an exquisite ballad and an overlooked single.

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