How Does a Thirteen Year Old Write Something Like This?
Tell me how it feels like
Take off your disguise
Show me the light
Bring me down into your level
Make me a rebel
Hold me please, never leave
I need a daily poisoning
Your words so deep, cut into me
Whispers so loud they’re deafening.
— The Warning: “Show Me The Light”
By all accounts, Paulina Villarreal has grown up in a loving, supportive, trauma-free family. She is the middle of three sisters who share a passion for music and are rapidly becoming global rock stars. When she wrote this, she had not yet had time to have her heart broken. But when you listen to more of the band’s songs, you realize a lot of them are dark, and these girls are wise beyond their years.
I previously posted on them here and here. Check these out if you haven’t before. You just may be blown away.
The Warning are known for going hard. However, one mark of a truly great hard-rock band is the ability to dial it down and give us something that reaches the soul. It’s sort of like modern art: Lots of people can splatter paint on a canvas. I don’t take them seriously unless they have proven they can actually paint.
The Warning can paint.
Here, Paulina, normally the band’s drummer, plays the keys. The venue is small and intimate. The recording is raw and unprocessed. As wonderful and disconcerting, as I find the lyrics, for me the crazy thing is how musically beautiful this song is. It’s not complex, but it’s perfectly written. And Dany’s guitar solo, oh my gosh. It makes me think of early Peter Green — every note counts, and every note stings.