Jenny Hval’s “To Be a Rose” – A Dreamlike Exploration of Memory
Jenny Hval’s latest track, To Be a Rose , is nothing short of mesmerizing. The Norwegian experimental artist, known for her ability to blur the lines between sound, poetry, and surreal storytelling, has once again delivered something truly special. This new single, taken from her upcoming album Iris Silver Mist , is a deeply personal and evocative meditation on scent, memory, and transformation.
A rose is never just a rose—at least not in Hval’s world. She takes this simple, familiar flower and unravels its complexity, much like a skilled perfumer crafting a fragrance with layers of meaning. The song carries us through time, weaving between past and present as a single scent unlocks a flood of memories. Over a lush, atmospheric soundscape filled with jungle-like ambiance, muted horns, and subtle guitar strums, Hval paints an intricate picture: a performance on a crumbling stage, an audience exhaling cigarette smoke in synchrony, and a childhood memory of her mother smoking on the balcony. The way she pieces these images together feels almost cinematic—hazy yet deeply intimate.
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What makes To Be a Rose truly stunning is its ability to turn the ordinary into something almost mythical. The imagery of smoke rising, swirling over a “dead-end town,” feels both nostalgic and dreamlike, as if memory itself is taking shape in the air. Hval’s voice soars over the track, carrying with it a gentle but powerful emotional weight. And then comes the climax—a breathtaking key change that feels like a final, cathartic exhale, as if she’s bottled up all these fragmented moments and released them as a single, intoxicating scent.
There’s a poetic inversion at play here too. Hval cleverly flips Gertrude Stein’s famous phrase—"A rose is a rose is a rose"—and instead sings, “A rose is a rose is a cigarette.” It’s a subtle but striking shift, turning the flower into something transient, something fleeting like a puff of smoke. This transformation mirrors the way memories evolve, how they shift and reshape themselves over time.
Jenny Hval has always been an artist who challenges perception, and To Be a Rose is no exception. It’s a song that lingers, much like a scent that refuses to fade, pulling you back into its world long after the final note has played. If this is just the beginning of what Iris Silver Mist has in store, we’re in for something truly extraordinary.
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