This Kiss by Faith Hill
Certain songs take hold in my head, sometimes old, sometimes new, for reasons which may or may not be obvious. So, I’ll write stuff about them.
“I don’t want another heartbreak / I don’t need another turn to cry.” These are the first two lines of one of the most exhilarating and joyous bursts of endorphin-releasing pop songs I know. I suppose I should admit I never noticed the words to the verses until recently, but now that I have, I realize how much better they make the way Faith Hill captures the “rocket shooting straight across the sky” of her new connection. An awareness of love ending in pain is a necessary prerequisite for allowing oneself to forget anything but bliss.
Here's another fun fact I didn’t realize until recently. This song wasn’t Faith Hill’s first record or even her first hit. She had two successful country albums before crossing over into pop with her third album, Faith, on the strength of this gem. “This Kiss” was my first exposure to this singer, and honestly, nothing else I’ve heard by her has hit me with even half the power of this record. In a way, that makes a nice metaphor for the song itself – that rush of ecstasy can go away if the other person isn’t as perfect as we think. The difference, of course, is that I can still go back to “This Kiss” any time I want.
How does this miracle of rapturous euphoria work? 1998 was the height of country crossover success – Shania Twain had virtually ruled 1997, and the world was ready for more of whatever made Twain huge on both pop and country charts. Faith Hill co-produced her third album, and, as was probably the norm at the time, she used something like 60 different musicians and singers to get the sound she wanted. “This Kiss” is not loaded with players – I think two guitars, pedal steel, organ, bass, drums, and some backing vocals are all that I hear. I’m pretty sure the song’s co-writer (along with Robin Lerner and Annie Roboff) Beth Nielsen Chapman has a prominent role as backing vocalist on the bridge, and there is a male voice coming in towards the end of the song.
Set up by a brief drum into (1 1-2-3)the guitars, steel, bass, and drums lay down a couple bars to set the scene, then pull back, and Hill delivers those opening lyrics. The third and fourth lines are more of her worries: “I don’t want to learn the hard way / Baby, hello, oh no, goodbye.” Then comes that rocket shooting across the sky, and we’re off to the races. The chorus builds and builds as Hill tries to describe her elation, relying on a series of three and four syllable words that match the way her heart skips as she enjoys those lips on hers. Centrifugal, perpetual, pivotal moment, impossible – these words are not common in choruses of pop songs, but they make this one especially magical. I should also point out the wonderful choice to throw in a long breathy, “Ah” before the word impossible. Then, she just gives up trying to describe it, and settles for shouting in her highest register, “This kiss, this kiss, this kiss, unstoppable, this kiss.” Goose bumps, just like the real thing.
The second verse finds her contemplating fairy tales, imagining a world wherein Cinderella and Snow White did not have the happy endings we were led to believe they received. But this doesn’t stop Hill from feeling what she’s feeling: “All I wanted was a white knight / With a good heart, soft touch, fast horse / Ride me off into the sunset / Baby, I’m forever yours.” That “good heart, soft touch, fast horse” brings the rhythmic skipping we heard in the chorus into the verse, too.
There’s a key change after the second chorus to bring us to the bridge. For the first two choruses, it sounds to me as if Hill overdubbed her own second vocal line – the timbres are so close, and I love the way the second part is slightly behind the beat of the first part, creating a neat echo effect that implies the kisser and the kissee are both enjoying the moment. On the bridge, though, a more soul-signifying backing vocal joins – I haven’t heard enough Chapman to be sure, but as I mentioned, it reminds me of her, and she did write the song, so why wouldn’t it be? The bridge shows off the way the world can shut down when we are in the early grip of love: “You can kiss me with the windows open / While the rain comes pouring inside / Kiss me in sweet slow motion / Let’s let everything slide.” Then she slides everything into the key of the chorus with “You got me floating, you got me flying.”
Somehow, the last chorus gets even bigger. The backing vocals repeat whole lines in spaces between them, the steel guitar swells, Hill starts playing around with the lyrics of the chorus, the male voice joins the female backing vocalist, we’re ready to stay in this space forever, then the thing starts fading out. I’m disappointed every time this song ends, and I’ve never gotten tired of it. I’ve played it over and over again the last few weeks since I stumbled upon it randomly on an MTV 90s pop block. There have been a lot of songs about love and lust, but very few that have ever so perfectly captured the feeling of those first few moments of physical connection.
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