Music Review // CHASE THE BEAR "This Is What You Wanted"

 

This song begins with strong keyboards and that sets the tone for it.  Somewhat like the blues, this also has that guitar-driven rock sound of something like garage, when you get to that place where the music can almost turn into a religious experience.  It has a lot of soul and I'm surprised that there isn't a tambourine shaking in here as well.   There are a lot of artists throughout the history of music who could be related with this song, but your influences will help guide you on that front.

When "This Is What You Wanted" first starts the question as to whether or not this is what the other person wants is asked.  But this turns into a sort of back and forth which finally seems to erupt with "I'm so tired of being tangled up in you".   It feels a lot like if you've ever been in a relationship with someone else who didn't know what they wanted and they sent mixed signals.  Sometimes they seemed into you, other times they didn't.  This song is about realizing that isn't healthy and moving on from it.

There is a big guitar solo in here which reminds me of Santana and the chorus says: "I don't need you / It's time to walk away".  Sometimes the blues is about being sad in the sense that this song would be about someone leaving you or just breaking your heart in a more direct way.  But I appreciate that as we've evolved as humans and music has evolved with us we're at a point where we can feel that sadness come from what could have been had the other person just made up their mind.  It's a different, more complex type of sadness.

One of the things that I've always liked about hearing songs like this is that if you're one of those people who married your high school sweetheart you can still get something out of this because the relationship doesn't have to be romantic.  It's almost like a job telling you that they're going to promote you and then they never do, so then you leave and take another job- sort of promote yourself- and by doing that just do what they wanted but couldnt't do themselves.  Still, it's nice to see the hope in this song even if it largely feels like the blues.