Lilies (song)

Bat For Lashes Writer(s) Natasha Khan Producer(s) Natasha Khan David Kosten Released 12 October 2012 Recorded 2011 Length 4:47 The Haunted Man track listing - "All Your Gold"

"Lilies" is the opening track on Bat For Lashes' third album, The Haunted Man. It was released as the fourth and final single off the album in January 2013.

Background

"Lilies" was one of the first songs written for album. Natasha wrote it on the autoharp on her couch after watching the 1970s film Ryan's Daughter. She was inspired by a scene in which the main female character goes out at night to meet the man she loves:

I was at home on my sofa with the autoharp in my lap and I was watching a film called Ryan’s Daughter, which is a old 70’s David Lean film. He’s an English director and he made this film set in an island on the coast. And it’s a very romantic story of a woman who has an affair with a soldier that’s come back from war. I watched the film and there’s a bit where she runs outside and all these lilies are swaying really fast in the wind and all the pollen hits her skirt. And she’s looking up the hill and she sees the shadow of the man she loves. And then it’s this triumphum moment so I put the mute button on and I just wrote ‘Lilies’ there in about 20 minutes.

She told Pitchfork:

“There’s a scene where the female character is going out at night to meet this soldier,” Khan recalls. “It’s dusk, there are all these lilies, and you can see how heady and fragrant the air is. All the pollen is blowing on her skirt, and she’s looking at this man—it’s so sensual and exciting. She’s been so deathly bored and trapped in her own existence. That’s exactly how I felt.”

She told NME Magazine on 28 July 2012:

"With 'Lilies', I was thinking about my grandmother, but I was also inspired by Ryan's Daughter because it's about a woman who's stuck in this Irish village by the sea, and she waits for this soldier who comes over the hill. I used that as a visual inspiration to talk about women waiting for men in a symbolic way, whether it's in war or with someone who's not there emotionally."

Natasha sees this song as the manifesto for The Haunted Man:

Every time I write an album, the first track is my favourite in a way. This one especially because the content of the song is a really good manifesto for the rest of the record. It starts out haunted by being lonely or not able to get inspiration, feeling a bit isolated. By the end it moves into this pro-life, elated full-on ending. For me, the album is about letting go of things and resolving something. I think because I wrote it over such a long time – a period of two years – I was almost trying to get away from extremes, trying to be a real person and settle down and find out about those bits in between the drama of feeling really sad and fucked up and really euphoric and happy, because I’d written the last album in that dramatic dark place. I wanted the The Haunted Man to be a bit more eclectic and varied and rich, I suppose.

The lyrics "Thank God I'm alive!" exemplify the epiphany that moved her forward from her creative lull. “This bolt of joy, the rawness of what it’s like to be a human being. To have this massively sweet, glorious feeling that accompanies the realization that you’re just a fucking piece of dirt on an earth spinning in space.”

Music video

Bat For Lashes - Lilies (Official Video)

Development

The music video was filmed in late August 2012 at Hornet Workshop in Brooklyn, NY. Natasha stated that she originally paid for the video herself, knowing her record label EMI would be freaked out by how long the manual effects-heavy video would take to make. But her label was impressed with the result and agreed to pay for it.

Behind the scenes

Images

Video

Bat For Lashes - Lilies (Behind the Scenes)

Lyrics

Again tonight I sang a song, a prayer if you will
Fell to the floor on blackened knees, and all the trees fell still
Pressed my hands between my thighs, and poured the thistle milk
Begged the thunderbolts to strike and mark me as alive

Oh the lilies on the hill
Oh the lilies on the hill
Oh the lilies on the hill
Scented the night

And so I finished up my prayer, rose slowly and I stared
But I was empty as a grave and ghostless was the air
Lay back to bed and dulled my eyes and searched those fruitless skies
Again begged the thunderbolt to strike to mark me or else I would die

Oh, the lilies on the hill
Oh, the lilies on the hill
Oh, the lilies on the hill
Scented the night

And in the seconds before sleep
And in the second before sleep
Did I believe what I did see?
Did I believe what came to me?

Appeared the figure of a man, waving upon the hill
To the window I ran and saw what he had sent
Children of a private world, to be conceived in milk
A hundred marching to my door, all bringing dreams to drink

Thank God I'm alive!
Thank God I'm alive!

Oh, the lilies on the hill
Oh, the lilies on the hill
Oh, the lilies on the hill
Scented the night