HNRY FLWR finds salvation in the power of love in the uplifting video “Waiting Room”
Photo by Lisa Candela
Originally published by Alt Citizen
“This song was written while sitting in a waiting room for my bandmate in a pediatric cancer clinic in New York City. Between the battle for his life and an intense breakup I just had, I was in a terrible space.” This is how David Van Witt frames up the story for his latest single as HNRY FLWR, “Waiting Room.” The uplifting, pastoral track was born from a very dark place, but its message of hope and resilience in the face of overwhelming circumstances pushes through the blackness like the warm rays of a benevolent dawn.
Beginning sparsely with a metronomic beat recalling the dry ticking of a utilitarian wall clock, the track gradually builds with acoustic guitar, layering in jangly electric guitar and wooly synths that fill the spaces between the other instruments like the comforting softness of a warm blanket. This is 21st century Americana built upon the sturdy, time-tested framework of past indie champions like REM and Big Star and clad with bright, textural siding of modern song-wrights like Father John Misty and The War On Drugs. Standing in opposition to the often inverted, twilight tendencies of his contemporaries, “Waiting Room” blossoms outward, reaching toward sunlight rather than sulking in the corner bundled in shadow. In this manner the song almost skims the surface of Christian rock with its positive portrayal of peaceful salvation granted after enduring difficult trials, but avoids embodying that dubious classification by swapping out the ambiguous concept of god for a different immensely powerful man-made concept that transcends the confines of religious structure: love.
“As I was waiting, a volunteer clown came in and started making all the kids laugh. That moment shook me — seeing sick children finding joy helped me find my own joy amid the darkness. Breakups and cancer are not contagious, but love is,” says Van Witt about the moment inspiration approached him. While the moment was in no way divine, it could be considered a spiritual revelation. Deliverance from an isolating darkness borne of feelings of helplessness by the power of shared love and realizing that there is boundless joy just beyond the pain, heralded not by a heavenly chorus of angels but by the selfless endeavors of a volunteer and the effervescent laughter of children.
The visual component of “Waiting Room” places Van Witt inside a sparsely furnished room of wainscoted plaster walls fitted with tall windows stretching upwards to high ceilings. The environment simultaneously evokes the simple awe of both a rural church and the spartan utilitarianism of a pre-war hospital existing somewhere in the nebulous years of America’s provincial past. Van Witt’s plain dark suit and bolo tie play heavily into the accepted visual vocabulary of that mythology, a man of faith outside of time but still defined by the styles and ideology of a bygone era. Obviously saturated and physically exhausted, is it apparent that Van Witt has weathered a storm, retreating to this space to find sanctuary from the deluge of life. The cool tones and puffs of steam raising from his lips with each syllable underscore the loneliness and isolation he feels, but the positive message of his secular psalm invokes an internal strength that buoys his resolve. The longer Van Witt spends in the room the clouds visibly begin to retreat from his mind, arms raised in praise like a Sunday preacher as he delivers and encouraging sermon of self-healing and the inherent power of unwavering personal faith.
The video ends with Van Witt emerging from the ocean, walking slowly towards the beach as the sun breaks over the horizon. No longer adrift, he has found his way to safety. No longer battered by the driving rain of despair but rising from the cleansing waters, freshly baptized in the light of a new day and a fresh start, awash in the glory of love.