Music With Meaning: “Ottolenghi” by Loyle Carner
It’s okay to try and “leave everything in yesterday” …the sun will come out again after a rainy day.
It’s the end of 2023 as I’m writing this, and I think for many of us, the phrase “What a year!” is an accurate description of how it feels to have reached this point…in a variety of ways. For some of us, the phrase has a more positive, upbeat sort of feeling to it; for others, the year hasn’t been so kind. There’s probably some of us who find ourselves in the in-between — there have been some great moments, as well as ones that weren’t so great either.
While I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this year, I do know that it came with its ups and downs, excitements and disappointments, and moments of ease and hardship. I had been thinking about writing something heading to end off the year; there were a few songs floating in my head, but I wasn’t sure where to go. To my surprise, as I was scrolling through my YouTube subscription box, I saw that Genius had uploaded a video of Loyle Carner breaking down the lyrics to his 2018 single, “Ottolenghi”, which was named after the chef Yotam Ottolenghi, who Loyle’s a big fan of. (You might recognize Loyle from an earlier piece I wrote about Tom Misch’s “Water Baby”, which he was featured on).
“Ottolenghi” is one of Loyle’s best-known songs, and it’s a favorite amongst his fans. Like many of his songs, this track delves into some of his deeper feelings and ideas about life, especially as they’re conveyed through moments or aspects of his own experiences. As he explains in his Genius breakdown, this song came from an experience Loyle had while riding on the train.
But enough exposition — let’s get into the music. This track starts off with a soft and warm Rhodes-like piano that plays a few opening chords for the first two or so bars, and then then continues on to the song’s main chord progression and melody. Loyle begins the first verse as follows:
I was sat up on the train
Staring out the window at the rain (Uh)
I heard this little lady must’ve felt the pain
Ask her mum if the blazing sun’ll ever shine again
These lines describe what Loyle is witnessing on the train — a young girl was asking her mother about whether the sun would come back during the rainy day they were witnessing on the train. In the Genius breakdown, Loyle mentions that he takes this conversation as a metaphor for his own feelings, saying that the rain was very akin to his feelings of exhaustion and sadness; he then draws the contrast between himself and the young girl’s perspective, where the young girl is asking the question with “a beautiful innocence”, as opposed to his question coming with “a weighted skepticism”. For many of us, we had moments this year (or the whole year, perhaps) where it felt rainy — we felt tired and sad at how life was going.
These next lines, however, give a little wisdom:
I felt ashamed, feel the same, not her mother, though
Nah, started to laugh, got her son involved (Uh)
Mention the past like a running joke,
And told her ‘without all the rain there’s no stunning growth’
Now, in no way, shape, or form am I trying to invalidate or dismiss anyone’s pain, and I don’t believe Loyle is either. A lot of times when people experience hardship or heartbreak of any kind, they’re encouraged to focus more on whatever potential silver linings there could be in a difficult situation at the expense of fully acknowledging and processing the pain they are feeling. While aphorisms like “Out of difficulties grow miracles” can be guilty of this as well, I think that Loyle including this nugget of wisdom that the young girl’s mother shares with her is still very important — and I do believe it is pointing out that there is a stark difference between assuming that there is always some intrinsic or extrinsic meaning to hardship and learning to take the hardship you experience, make your own meaning from it, and grow. In other words, there are times where adversity is healthy, or rather, how we learn to move forward from it.
Loyle makes a reference and pays homage to Roots Manuva and his song “Dreamy Days” in the next few lines (Roots Manuva is one of Loyle’s biggest inspirations):
Close, uh, to everything and nothing
Picture past the honeymoon and bluffing
Where the wooden spoon is only cuffing
Shorten the discussion
But the roots can’t maneuver out of nothing
I’ve been suffering these dreamy days (uh)
Although I’m not familiar with Roots Manuva and his work, these lines speak to the feeling of moving through the rain that Loyle is rapping about in this song; day in and day out it feels like you’re moving forward, but also wandering aimlessly. Perhaps favorite lines in this part of the verse are “But the roots can’t maneuver out of nothing/I’ve been suffering these dreamy days”. As he explains in the breakdown, Loyle listened to a lot of Roots Manuva during the making of his album Not Waving, But Drowning where this track comes from, and Manuva’s music, amongst his other influences are part of the roots that inspire Loyle to make the music he does. In another vein, I think these two lines speak to the earlier idea Loyle explored, where the rain is essential for growth. In the same way that rain is essential for growth, the line “but the roots can’t maneuver out of nothing” makes me think of the fact that a tree’s roots have to be firmly planted in the soil — and what’s another word for soil? Dirt! Just like we need rain to grow, we also need dirt or soil, despite how rough and unpleasant it can be. (This also reminds me of a song I grew up with, Mary Mary’s “Dirt”.) The words “I’ve been suffering these dreamy days” also makes me think of how sometimes we may try to escape the difficulty we experience by spending time daydreaming about how life could have been, only to snap back into reality and feel the pain of how different our dreams are from where we’re at.
The last few lines of the first verse pick up from these thoughts:
Remedy and lust don’t hold any memories of us
Rather hold you everyday until the memories are dust
Yo, we only caught the train ’cause you know I hate the bus
Never get enough
These lines convey a theme that is common across Loyle’s songs: the importance of cherishing moments and memories, as well as the people who help make them. For me, “Remedy and lust don’t hold any memories of us” speaks to the idea that our attempts to satisfy ourselves with lustful, greedy, and selfish intentions can often prevent us from making memories with the people that matter — and it would be much better to hold those we love close “until the memories are dust”.
Jordan Rakei takes over on the chorus with a soft yet powerful voice, and carrying the song’s main melody:
Born and raised
Made attempts to crawl away
Find a way to exist and hide your face, some relate
Leave everything in yesterday
This chorus is the most powerful part of the song to me: I feel that it’s somewhat of a universal description of how challenging life can be for a variety of people. Every one of us is a person who was born and raised in different ways and by different people and environments. There may have been times where we tried to “crawl away”, whether we were young infants learning to move around, or when we grew older and tried to move away from spaces or situations that may have been unfamiliar, painful, or limiting. Whether the hardship we’re facing comes from the hurt others have caused us, or from our own mistakes or bad choices, sometimes all we want to do is hide our face, and the feeling of shame is something that people can relate to in many different contexts. Despite this, Jordan leaves us with one piece of advice: “Leave everything in yesterday.” The way I see this, Loyle and Jordan aren’t telling us to act like things of the past don’t matter at all or that it’s somehow easy not to dwell on the past, especially when it’s painful. Rather, this is an encouragement to live in the present, and to make the most of where we are now.
Loyle moves into the second verse and talks about the rest of his train ride, where the book he’s reading draws some attention:
(Uh) They ask about the bible I was reading
Told them that the title was misleading
Labelled it Jerusalem but really it’s for cooking Middle-Eastern
I could see your mind was changing
With the seasons, shaded for a reason (Uh)
While Loyle is sitting on the train, he is reading the cookbook “Jerusalem” by Yotam Ottolenghi. As the lines explain, some other passengers mistake the book he is reading as a bible, and one subsequently attempts to talk to him about religion and where he comes from (which in a way is a nod to the “roots” bar earlier), but he’s trying to explain to them that the book isn’t of religious importance. In the Genius breakdown, Loyle describes this as being in the middle of two polar opposites — between this religious conversation and the innocent question that the little girl raises to her mother.
I found myself pleasantly surprised when Loyle revealed what these next few lines were about in the breakdown:
Day will start decreasing
Leaving like the orange in the evening
It was creeping through the clouds
But now I’m proud to see the images releasing
I just wish the little lady could’ve seen it, but she was dreaming
Loyle explains that at this point, everyone on the train stopped for a moment because the sun finally came out:
“All of us are sat there on this train, you know — this douchebag guy here, this beautiful girl, and myself…and then all of us just stop talking, all of us stop worrying, because the thing that we’re worried about never coming back comes back. Yeah, that’s it, it’s just a “thank you” — that section is a “thank you” to the sun.”
After hearing Loyle tell the story behind this verse, I think this moment that Loyle describes is so important to the song — this part of the verse is about holding out hope. Even when we are moving through the rain and the stormy parts of life, we can hold on to the hope that the sun can come out again — especially knowing that the sun is necessary for growth too! The good moments and memories that come throughout life are just as important in helping us grow and make meaning out of life as the challenges we face. And just like Loyle uses this section of the song to thank the sun, it’s also important for us to practice gratitude — and not the toxic kind that teaches us not to acknowledge when we feel pain or unhappiness; rather, we should practice the kind of gratitude that helps us to be mindful of everything, both good and bad.
Loyle then moves to the latter part of the second verse:
(Uh) Reckon she’s standing with her mum, saying to her
‘Look, Mother here’s the sun’
Rooted in the moment ’til the memories are done
So I sit and start to wonder on the woman she’ll become
Wonder if I’ll have a son or a daughter, ones that I brought up, never strong, never telling me to run
Never tried to find a sum
Tryna get it done
Yo, I wonder if she’ll ever be as clever as her mum, one
In that same lyric breakdown, Loyle explains that at the time he wrote these words, he wasn’t yet a father, but now after years of touring and the arrival of his son in 2020, the lyrics changed a bit:
’Cause now I got a son, not a daughter,
The one that I brought up, he’s strong,
He’s telling me to run
I’m tryna find a sum
I’m tryna get it done
I know my son, yeah, he’s as clever as his mum, one
Loyle explains that in his reimagined lyrics, his son is strong, and his son is telling him to run — but not away from challenges…he’s telling Loyle to run alongside him. And just like everyone else, Loyle’s trying to find a sum of money and work hard to keep his family together and taken care of. It was also quite funny to hear Loyle say that he was both scared and proud to say his son was as clever as his partner — “I’m in trouble”, he said in the breakdown.
After the second verse, the drums cut out and the production softens for a moment while Jordan Rakei sings the chorus for a first time, only for the drums and the piano to come back in on the second go round for the chorus. Once Jordan finishes the second chorus, the piano plays the song’s main melody once more, and after the main production fades out, some wistful and ambient keys play the song’s main musical motif…and a passenger on the train gives us some words of wisdom as the song closes:
Life can be bad, it can turn bad in a second
So remember what I’m tryna show you
This life can be good one minute
And next minute it can turn bad
So don’t look down on nobody
’Cause that’s how life can turn for everybody
So remember it’s love everybody
And I’m gonna look for, like, for my time
Thank you
I feel that this small morsel of wisdom is one of the other very important themes of the song, and one perspective we ought to hold onto wherever we go in life. It’s true that life can change at a moment’s notice; I don’t think I’d be wrong to say that many of us experienced this in 2023, or any year before that. It’s a given that we’re going to experience our share of good and bad in 2024, and that’s okay. I think the most important part that this passenger shares with us, though, is that we ought not to look down on anyone, but rather, we should learn to love others and exercise patience and hope for whatever situation we might be facing. I think that the world we live in often times tries to discourage us from seeing people’s struggles with compassion, and there are even times where we fail to give ourselves grace. Despite this, it’s important to practice loving ourselves and others, and inspiring hope amongst ourselves — earnestly looking forward to what tomorrow will bring.
As I think about 2023, although it came with its share of great and not-so-great things, I am grateful that I got to experience another year. Ever since I heard “Ottolenghi”, it’s been a song that prompts deep reflection for me, but not only that, it’s a song that reminds me to have hope, regardless of the situation. It felt even more amazing to hear Loyle perform it live at his Chicago show as well — there was a crowd of us singing the words “Born and raised/Made attempts to crawl away/Find a way to exist and hide your face, some relate/Leave everything in yesterday” and rapping along. This song means a lot to me, and to many other Loyle Carner fans. Even Loyle himself had a few words to say about what the song means to him at the end of the Genius breakdown:
“This song…has stayed with me because it’s been like a guiding light, a little nugget of hope, you know, at times when it’s felt hopeless…it helped me through a time in my life when I needed it, and I’ve seen it do that for others…I think with friends of mine, artists that I know — and ones that I love that I don’t know, always talk about their big songs, like the ones that have done the best for them, they hate them, you know? And so I feel very lucky that, like, maybe my biggest song or one of my biggest songs is like, one that I still really love and I’m proud of.”
Although it came out a couple years ago, if there’s a song you should listen to while reflecting on 2023 and setting the tone for 2024, it’s definitely this one. This song is a reminder that hardships and challenges of all kinds are a part of life, but that we can still grow from them; it’s a reminder that the sun can come out again, even after it’s been rainy for so long, and it’s a reminder that as important as the past may be, it’s okay to try and “leave everything in yesterday.”
Thank you for reading this piece; it’s been quite a while since I’ve written anything here — I’ve struggled to figure out what to write about sometimes or to give myself the proper time to put something together, but with the new year I knew I needed to try. I hope that wherever you find yourself, that you give yourself grace, that you take time to think about where you want to be this new year, and that you chase after your goals and dreams. I also hope you think of those who may not be where they want to be — think of those who may be struggling (even if that includes yourself at the moment) and show them love. As Loyle has often said (especially with his latest album, “hugo”, “Take these words and go forwards.” Wishing you all a healthy, blessed, and purposeful 2024.
Peace and love,
Manny ✌🏾💙
P.S. You can listen to the track and watch Loyle’s Genius breakdown of his verses below.
