Music Review: Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding "I Need Your Love"

Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding

I Need Your Love

Album: 18 Months

Year: 2013

           Ellie Goulding tries to save a withering relationship in the opaque “I Need Your Love.”

        A discordant synth shatters, setting a stormy tone.  The chorus opens the single. She’s been weakened, drained of any contentment she had in her body. Language is holding her together, keeping her well. A word from her husband can stop her from gasping. However, she can only look at him as he passes by her, wanting him to read her wounded eyes and mull over every page with her. She would be able to sleep at night again, knowing things between them will be work out. He could take her melancholy away tonight by pressing himself against her as he did a decade ago, giving her hope their relationship can return to civility. (“I need your love/I need your time/When everything's wrong/You make it right/I feel so high/I come alive/I need to be free with you tonight/I need your love.”)

       A dusky beat glimmers, emitting a hidden glow.

       Goulding repeats “I need your love.”

    He stays in his study throughout the evening. She can hear papers shuffling. Sometimes music plays. Usually, he’s on the phone, whispering and murmuring to someone she’d rather not know. On her way to the bedroom, she’ll compose herself, aching to recognize the man who resembles the one in her memory. Somehow, an ordinary question about his day has become out of place and awkward. Her questions and loneliness would only result in a puzzled expression from him. He no longer knows what she’s thinking. (“I take a deep breath everytime I pass your door/I know you're there but I can't see you anymore/And that's the reason you're in the dark/I've been a stranger ever since we fell apart.”)

       In the pre-chorus, she doesn’t know how to how to get him to talk to her. They can’t go on living separate lives in the same house. Living without him is a change she can’t handle. Maybe one day he will pull her into his arms, drop his secrets to the side, revealing he still loves her and always has. (“And I feel so helpless here/Watch my eyes are filled with fear/Tell me do you feel the same/Hold me in your arms again.”)

            The chorus is sung again.

           The sand bunches beneath her toes. She covers her eyes from the blinding stars, searching for her husband. Next to her is his wedding ring, photos of their first trip together and his favorite scarf. She walks to the end of the beach but finds herself back to at his stuff. Was she really the light in his life, making his dreams possible? Is she still someone who would accompany him to work functions? The despair weaves itself around her and she doesn’t have the energy to cut its strings. (“Now I'm dreaming, will I ever find you now?/I walk in circles but I'll never figure out/What I mean to you, do I belong/I try to fight this but I know I'm not that strong.”)

       The pre-chorus and chorus are sung again.

       In the bridge, for the thirteen years of their relationship, he has been a gentleman and dealt with her depression with courage. Her half-truths, her uncommunicative months in bed and careless spirit ruined their marriage. She doesn’t deserve to be loved by anyone. She is the cause for everything that’s wrong. (“All the years/All the times/You have never been to blame/And now my eyes are open/And now my heart is closing/And all the tears/All the lies/All the waste/I've been trying to make it change/And now my eyes are open.”)

          The chorus is sung again.

          The dusky beat closes the single. 

        Goulding’s childlike, lucid vocals wish for forgiveness. Simplicity and normalcy is what she desires to have. She walks through her memories with him and views herself as the enemy. Whether or not it’s her depression or self-loathing is up for interpretation. She’s an unreliable narrator and there seems to be much more than she’s not telling

     Harris’shaded arrangement has cracks of light, matching his style to Goulding’s with perfect lines. He is able to layer Goulding’s despondent vocals with wonder as she shields herself in denial.

       The ambiguous “I Need Your Love” has secrets of its own.