Perfect For Swaying Dancers
'Rosé' is the fifth single from Sussex five-piece The Feeling's debut album 'Twelve Stops and Home'. The song starts with a delicate, quasi-sorrowful piano melody, vaguely reminiscent of America's Straylight Run. Singer Gillespie Sells's soulful voice glides delightfully over the surface of the melody, lending real heart to the song. Sad, rhythmic, and yet subtly uplifting – this is a perfect song for swaying dancers on sparsely-populated dance floors. But this is just the feel of the song – The Feeling are in fact quite capable of filling the dance floors, and indeed they were the number one most played band on UK radio in 2006, being played an average of once every five minutes.
The lyrics of the song are intriguing, with Sells using the pink-ish Italian wine Rosé as a metaphor for his sexuality. Although there are self-deprecating elements to the lyrics – "you're taking your toll/and I'm no longer sane" – the song is ultimately positive and uplifting, as encapsulated in the enthusiastically-sung lines, "'Cos you're as good as the rest/And you're much better dressed/I think pink is my colour/I won't drink from no other". Music magazine The Word's claim that the song is "...a more important moment in history than the moon landings," is perhaps getting a bit carried away, but this is certainly a nice, well-written song that deserves your ears.