Annie Lennox herself has chosen Cold as her video for today to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Diva, so what better time to feature long time Annie fan Norma Koning’s piece about Cold. Thanks for sharing with us Norma!
For me, “Cold” is a stand-out song on “DIVA”. It says so much and the lyrics are very poignant when you think of this song as being about unrequited love. “Don’t I exist for you, don’t I still live for you….”
“Everything I posess, given with tenderness, wrapped in a ribbon of glass…” To me the ribbon of glass stands for the fact the singer knows she can’t have his love, for the ribbon will break….
But whereever you are in your life, and to me THE most beautiful lyric ever written is “Dying is easy, it’s living that scares me to death…”. I think each and every one of us have felt this way at one point in our life.
What then follows is the singer’s wish/hope, even though it’s cold (cold can be interpreted in many ways here):
“I could be so content hearing the sound of your breath
Cold is the colour of crystal the snowlight
that falls from the heavenly skies
catch me and let me dive under
for I want to swim in the pools of your eyes…”
She then burts into almost screaming for his love:
“I want to be with you baby
Slip me inside of your heart
don’t I belong to you baby
Don’t you know that nothing can tear us apart
Come on now come on now come on now
Telling you that
I loved you right from the start…”
But she also realises it is not meant to be:
“But the more I want you the less I get
Ain’t that just the way things are….”
This, I think, is a common thing for people who have an unrequited love: trying too hard which drives the other person away instead of towards them, and Annie understands this. To me the second most beautiful lyric of “Cold”.
“Winter has frozen us
Let love take hold of us
Cold cold cold
Now we are shivering
Blue ice is glittering
Cold cold cold…”
This verse to me stands for the fact the singer realises she will never have her so-wanted lover….
But in the last verse she expresses hope again:
“Cold is the colour of crystal the snowlight
that falls from the heavenly skies
catch me and let me dive under
for I want to swim in the pools of your eyes…”
The video fits the song pefectly, first seeing Annie in an old Venice running from something (her unrequited love? herself?), then seeing her standing in an old Venitian Palazzo with just the sound of rain on the windows which light also reflects on the walls and on Annie’s face. Very much gives you a feeling of ‘cold’, before Annie even starts singing. She acts this song so beautifully, I always wished she had done more acting!
Norma Koning