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The Love Language in Hikaru Utada’s “Simple and Clean”
This 2002 ballad still gives my heart those pitter-patter feelings.
When you walk away
You don’t hear me say please
Oh baby, don’t go
Simple and clean is the way that you’re making me feel tonight
It’s hard to let it go
There are just some songs that are formative for us as music listeners — and people who are trying to grow their own identities. Years later, you can hear one stray melody and be transported back to that first time the lyrics burrowed their way into your soul.
Hikaru Utada’s “Simple and Clean” — most well-known as the opening theme song for the English version of the video game Kingdom Hearts — is one of those songs for me. If I just look back, I can trace this song to some coming-of-age moments that would never have crossed my history otherwise.
In the years since, I’ve equated this song as having a “love language” all its own.
You’re giving me too many things
Lately you’re all I need and more
You smiled at me and said,Don’t get me wrong I love you
But does that mean I have to meet your father?
When we are older you’ll understand
What I meant when I said “No,
I don’t think life is quite that simple”
