218. Song No. 3,320: “Ferocious Love,” Aloha
That’s Your Fire, 2000

The F-songs have been where the familiar standbys really began to stand out against the parade of less-familiar novelties, new discoveries and second-chance favorites, and this Aloha song was a particular treat when it came up in the alphabetical rotation and said hello like it was a sorely missed old friend’s well-received re-emergence.

While Sugar is far and away my favorite Aloha album—a record so good that not even Pitchfork could snottily pick it apart—I kind of love that it’s the songs from their other just-as-incredible collections of music that’ve snagged some of the spotlight here.

As I’ve noted time and again, this project has been a whirlwind tour through a range of music I’m truly hearing in all its glory for the first time. And while that intentional act of rediscovery has been a dominant driver in 12,700 Songs, the unexpected payoffs have been mightily rewarding in their own right. That spark of recognition, for example, accompanying every song I know better than most has been such an authentic signal heralding visits from songs that feel more akin to warm homecomings that it’s been washing those instances of flickering familiarity with a fondness elevating well-worn songs into something not unlike the aural equivalent of a security blanket.

I am long aware that Sugar handily outpaces the rest of Aloha’s catalogue, in terms of my listening frequency and full-hearted affection, and one of the best parts about diligently tracking my music consumption for more than a decade is having visual proof of that favoritism I’d like to balance out by giving the band’s seven other equally awesome recordings their time to shine, an effort that certainly helped distinguish “Ferocious Love” from the herd. And this project overall has showcased just how good Aloha is no matter where you land in their discography, with this song being the most recent example.

It probably helps that That’s Your Fire only precedes Sugar by two years, and that Aloha’s respective debut and sophomore albums share an awful lot of the ethereal, twinkling musicality flowing from one song to the next that has endeared the latter to me with such… well, ferocity. It’s also what gives this second song on their first proper album such a magnetic pull, playing that softly building melody against increasingly enamored lyrics that launch right out of the gate with the vulnerable assertion of “When I am far from you / I begin to feel a pang.” Choosing such a potentially codependent starting point could have set this song up for offputtingly clingy desperation, but the lyrics and music are both equally packed with earnest soul-bearing that it’s hard to harden one’s heart against such softly inviting intimacy.

Like, you have lyrics like “We could take a leap of faith on your bed and land as a pile of flesh” and “You’re soft but life’s been hard” and “And when I dream of you / I roam around my room / I make you out of a brick wall” and “Ferocious love we radiate, the spirit sings and the body shakes” and “Wrap around me / Wrap yourself around me” that just scream of wanting nothing else in life but that person who’s emerged as that bright shining light scaring off life’s inevitable horrors lurking in the darkness of the unknown, not as a selfishly dehumanized and clung-to life raft but fueled by the inevitable attraction to someone beautiful and warm who feels like a homey haven in a cold, impersonal world. 

And, sure, I reluctantly concede that it’s not, like, masterful poetry spilling from this song, but I honestly never gave the lyrics much thought until now because, more often than not, the appeal of Aloha is really in the music and the feelings that invokes; the lyrics this early in their career are really more of afterthought placeholders that complement the mood of the music more than anything else, though they sure do feel good to belt out and take on a certain fervency and all-consuming needfulness that perfectly encapsulates their titular descriptor.