Nelly Furtado's Loose was a transformation. Teaming up with renowned producer Timbaland for her third album brought a newfound energy, teleporting her from the coffeehouse to the club. "Promiscuous" had a beat as sexed-up as its lyrics, and "Say It Right" holds up today as one of the 2000's slinkiest, catchiest hits. This album went platinum in the US, three of its songs have over a billion streams on Spotify (the aforementioned two plus "Maneater"), and had a whopping eight singles - and somehow, none of them were the absolutely brilliant "Wait For You." Which makes it the perfect candidate for the latest entry in the Deep Cuts series!
"Wait For You" is written by the same team of Furtado, Timbaland, and Danja that worked together on practically every song on Loose. Despite not being a single, clearly somebody had faith in the song - digital re-releases feature a "Wait For You Interlude" that consists of studio cross-talk between Furtado and Timbaland wherein the former calls the beat "wicked."
And she's right! "Wait For You" combines hip-hop percussion with Turkish folk music, with most of the song built around a sharp riff played on the bağlama, sampled from Muhlis Akarsu's "Allah Allah Delsem Gesem." I've mentioned before that a good rhythm section can function as a hook on all its own for me, and that's certainly the case here. Timbaland's drum beat here frequently leaves its normal groove and locks into an intense snare-kick drum combo, creating a bunch of mini crescendos throughout the song. Plucky strings add some sass along the way. Furtado rides this beat through both the verse and the chorus, it only relenting near the end when it switches from the drum machine to hand drums.
Lyrically, "Wait For You" is a straightforward tale of dedication to one's love. "I'll wait for you until the heavens fall / I'll wait for you until the end of the world." Dramatic? Sure! Obsessive? Quite possibly - especially since the lyrics don't make clear if this is an existing love or an unrequited one. But Furtado sells the hell out of it. By the time she delivers the earworm-y "'Cause right now feels just like a movie" at the end of the chorus, you're all in.
Because I am truly a freak for drum beats, I probably love this song more than most - but I do still find it fairly astounding that with two-thirds of the main tracklist of Loose receiving the single treatment, "Wait For You" was never one of them. Despite that, it's always one of the first songs from Furtado that I'll jump to.
No comments:
Post a Comment