Song of the Day: 'Let Her Go' by Passenger

This slow, dreamy ballad has dominated the European charts and rightfully so. “Let Her Go” is a soliloquy of sweet melodic yearning with a folk edge that holds back on over-sentimentality. There is an acoustic quality that allows the vocals to be heard and take center stage with lyrics that are thought provoking and earnest.

This is a love song that isn’t really a love song; it’s a pondering about love…song. “Let Her Go” is from the album, All the Little Lights (which is worth checking out as a whole).

At the core of what makes this song stand out is based on what it has to say lyrically and the way it goes about it. The lyrics are layered with juxtapositions and the way in which the wording paints the contrast, is what sparks the illustrational aspects that push the song into a higher frontier. The theme of “Let Her Go” is in essence, that only when you let the one you love leave, can you realize how much they truly meant to you in the first place.

This serves as the backdrop for various metaphors throughout the song. They are all united by the simple message that it’s only when we’re fulfilled, that we realize we were empty. The question it raises is how we succeed in contentment when the intrinsic nature of life calls us to measure it against something in order to achieve progress. 

The rhythm and rhyme that the lyrics posses, read with an enchanting and wistful beckoning of life experiences, the lessons learned through tough ones. The embellished instrumentation after the opening is a magnificent nuance.

There isn’t a single lyric that isn’t elegantly strung together and backed by an emotive vocal performance by Michael Rosenberg this is a quintessential track. Letting go of this song is a veritable improbability,