If I could capture daydreams in jars, I imagine they’d sparkle and glow in the same way “Always On My Mind” by Rose-Erin Stokes does. Her desire and longing are palpable in the way you imagine hope would feel if you could hold it in your hands, its physical and emotional weight and volume equal. It’s a feeling that last for a fleeting, fluid moment. Like sand passing through the crevices of a closed fist, “Always On My Mind” grasps for feelings too intense, too overwhelming to be held between musical notes.
“If I could then I would / Take it back to the start / Maybe, I should’ve / Set you apart,” sings Stokes. She delivers these lines not from a place of regret, but as someone who’s learned a valuable lesson: that sometimes in life, the reward doesn’t come from getting what your heart desires, it comes from the very act of having felt desire’s intensity in the first place.
