Jasmine (song)

Bat For Lashes Writer(s) Natasha Khan Charles Scott IV Producer(s) Natasha Khan Charles Scott IV Released August 19, 2019 Recorded 2018-2019 Length 02:55 From Lost Girls Single(s) "Kids In The Dark" "The Hunger" Promotional single(s) "Feel For You" "Jasmine" "Desert Man" Singles chronology "The Hunger" "Jasmine" "Desert Man" Lost Girls track listing "Desert Man" "Vampires"

"Jasmine" is a song performed by Bat For Lashes. It serves as the fifth track on Natasha's fifth album, Lost Girls. It is the second promotional single from the album released on August 19, 2019.

Background

Released in advance of the release of Lost Girls, Natasha Khan shared snippets of the song on her Instagram on 16, 18 and 19 August 2019.

On September 7, 2019, she shared an artwork through her Instagram account.

Music and composition

When asked about how much was Natasha Khan’s perspective or her protagonist’s (Nikki Pink) on the songwriting for Lost Girls during her September 13, 2019 interview with Women In Pop, Khan explained this song in particular:

“Jasmine is a spoken word, film noir song about this girl that goes round killing men at night, burying their bodies at the bottom of a cemetery. Obviously that’s not me but there’s an aspect to it where I feel that way sometimes when I’m walking around at night, stalking.

Natasha Khan for WomenInPop:

“It’s sort of a homage to LA. When you drive around at night, it has a very dark underbelly and I’m sure there’s, you know, all the serial killers, all the cults, all the weird mystical freaks that come out at night. ‘Jasmine’ is this made up idea of what it would be like to be a serial killer. It was inspired by going out at night, there’s a lot of jasmine blooming, especially in the spring, which to me is very feminine and alluring like the scene of something really sexual.”

Natasha Khan for NPR:

“The lyrics of this song, “Jasmine,” were about a girl — much like the heady scent of jasmine that you get in LA in the summertime that perfumes the night — but she’s a serial killer that stalks LA and kills people and buries them in iconic places, like the Hollywood Forever cemetery. So she’s one of the vampire gang, but it’s kind of a microcosmic narrative story within that idea. And she’s actually the main protagonist in the script that I’m working on at the moment. I just finished a script writing course at UCLA to work on her story.”

Khan for Independent:

“Jasmine”, with its cluttered soundscapes and sensual melody, is inspired by the sensory overload of both LA and childhood trips to Pakistan. “My impression of Pakistan was the heat hitting you when you get off the plane like a hairdryer in your face,” she recalls, “and the smell of jasmine and sewage and dogs and markets. The similarities to LA are that hot, dusty climate, the desert, the heady flower smells.”

Critical reception

The Stereogum opined:

“It’s a character sketch about a woman by the same name, and Khan paints in a shadowy picture in alternating spoken word and breathy soars. Like another Bat For Lashes song that bears the name of a woman, “Laura,” there’s a specter of tragedy hanging over the whole thing. “When she blooms, she kills,” Khan sings.”

The NME opined:

“On the hypnotic song, Natasha Khan moves between husky, spoken word-style delivery in the verses and a melodic, falsetto-heavy chorus. The song’s titular character Jasmine cuts an irresistible figure.”

Lyrics

She drives hard through the June Gloom haze
Legs for days and bones of pearl
Her love hurtling down death's highways
The hands of a killer, the heart of a little girl

Jasmine
You come along
And take me
To where I feel like
A woman, coming on strong
Jasmine into the night
Night

Don’t be seduced by those baby blues
That secret smile when it's captured you
'Cause little girl cracks your heart in two
Sucks the juice till she turns you loose

Jasmine
You come along
And take me
To where I feel like
A woman, coming on strong
Jasmine into the night
Night
Into the night
Night

A body bag on eucalyptus hills
And the Hollywood forever
And the endless sleeping pills
No girl will ever cure your nighttime ills
Like Jasmine does
’Cause when she blooms, she kills