A Desire to Be: 33 Years of So Tonight That I Might See
Every Sunday, milk crate revisits an iconic piece of music history—artist, album, or otherwise—as a part of our weekly crate digging series.
Design by Sophie Parrish
By Isha Savi
Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval is a figure shrouded in mystery. She is a recluse, intentionally staying out of the music industry spotlight, and actual spotlights due to her severe stage fright. Her persona has allowed her and her band’s music to feel expansive, unconfined to a personal brand. So Tonight That I Might See, the band’s second studio album, turned 33 earlier this month, and in its time on earth it has grown to be larger than life.
Released in 1993, the album was appreciated by a cult following before it was able to break into the mainstream. In fact, it wasn’t until a year later in 1994 that the album was able to chart. It was the perfect slow-burn classic, especially with the incessant use of “Fade Into You” in movies and TV.
I was fourteen the first time I’d listened to this album. Its melancholic idealism ran parallel to whatever living-in-the-midwest fueled teenage angst I was dealing with at the time. The profound sadness of “Fade Into You” has stood out to me since my first listen. Sandoval sings “I look to you, and I see nothing/ I look to you to see the truth,” against a lush background, asserting a testament to love that is unrequited and impossible. Even so, “Fade Into You” is hailed as one of the best love songs of all time. As I’ve gotten older, I think I better understand the intention and purpose of a song like this. When I was younger, I had a habit of stewing in negative emotions and letting it rot me from the inside out. Over time, though, I’ve grown to understand the importance of seeing those feelings for what they are rather than for the pain they can cause. The song presents the experience of loving, even if it is one sided, as beautiful in its own right. The repeated delivery of “I think it’s strange you never knew,” expresses curiosity, as if Sandoval is experiencing something otherworldly. The song aches, but with an understanding that everything is fleeting–even sadness, even love. This sentiment is woven through the entirety of So Tonight That I Might See and lends it an almost detached quality, as if she is looking at her life as a third party viewer. This way, pain seems just as beautiful as pleasure, and they both only exist within a moment.
The second track of the album “Bells Ring,” speaks to this idea. The song is set to the backdrop of a ’60s rock n’ roll kissed distorted guitar and an enduring tambourine that is present through a large chunk of the album. Sandoval sings “Leave my heart down by the water/ He spins inside my soul…Nobody’s asked about your story/ Nobody wants to know your reason why,” painting a picture of her leaving behind her reservations to share an intimate moment with a person she feels tied to. This is further emphasised when she ends the song saying “Don’t want to say that I’m through with it/ Just want to be right by your side,” expressing a desire to be close to this person in spite of perceptively negative things that could hold her back. Similar to “Fade Into You,” her feelings only exist within the vacuum of the moment, allowing her to see them for exactly what they are.
So Tonight That I Might See takes a sharp tonal twist as it moves onto the third track, “Mary of Silence.” The track has a very eerie quality to it; it features an ominous, droning guitar and is punctuated by a hollow drumline. Here, Sandoval addresses ‘Mary’ (who could be interpreted as the Virgin Mary/Our Lady of Silence) as a constant idealistic figure that she is trying to come back to and embody. Sandoval sings “Help me walk with you, To the sky that we see/ Shuddering in myself, in-my-self,” almost distressed, as if she has lost something she is trying to find within ‘Mary.’ The song then transitions into the fourth track on the album, “Five String Serenade.”
“Five String Serenade,” as its title implies, is far more stripped back in comparison to what the rest of the album has to offer. To the serene strum of her five strings, Sandoval reminisces on an absent lover singing “And on my easel I drew/ While I was thinkin’ of you/ And on the roof of my head/ In came my five string serenade.”
The fifth track, “Blue Light,” exists within a similar vein as “Fade Into You.” It feels detached and spacey, but is contrastingly hopeful. The song opens with the warm hum of a buzzing organ, pulling the listener in to hear Sandoval sing “There’s a blue light in my best friend’s room/ There’s a blue light in his eye/ There’s a blue light, yeah/ I wanna see it shine.” This song is my favorite on the album for a lot of reasons, but mainly because it feels like a testament to seeing something beautiful in other people, and succumbing to the desire of wanting it for yourself. I’ve fallen into the trap of believing I am undeserving of things I want for a myriad of reasons, but there is no prerequisite to wanting things. It is a primal and lucid experience, and this song encapsulates that feeling. In the third verse, Sandoval sings “There’s a world outside my doorstep/ Flames over everyone’s heart/ Don’t you see them shining? /I want to hear them beating for me;” saying that the world’s heart will beat for you as long as you allow yourself to hear it. There is a ‘blue light’ that shines for all of us.
The track that follows, “She’s My Baby,” is one whose meaning is widely debated. Released as the promotional single for the album, this song has a nervous, shaky energy to it. The guitar sounds erratic, giving Sandoval’s monotonous tone a pleading undercurrent as she sings “She’s my baby/ Ain’t that something?/ But I know she belongs to you/ Yesterday was another day/ When I saw your baby walkin’ home alone.” Audiences have speculated that this song is about a lover, a parent-child relationship or the experience of giving up a child for adoption. Regardless of its ‘true’ meaning, it aches no matter how one interprets it. The song ends with her sounding defeated as she says “She’s my baby/ Ain’t that something?/ But I know that she belongs to you/ She belongs to you.”
“Unreflected” is the seventh track on the album and is the most sonically distinct in the album. It leans into the folkier sound that underscores much of the album and feels very earthy and grounded in comparison to the blissed-out, hazy sounds that are featured more heavily in the album’s first half. The instrumentals take center stage on this song, meaning the lyrics are used sparingly but still pack a punch. They reflect the absurdity of life and feeling aimless as time passes; Sandoval sings “The unreflected feeling of a shortened flattened soul/ The life that cuts the cold now is in your past…Another life that’s left/ Another life that’s left.” The eighth track, “Wasted,” feels like a reaction to this feeling. The song jumps back into a rougher sound as Sandoval sings about disillusionment and emotional exhaustion. She sings “I felt a little unfortunate/ A little mistaken/ I felt like I’d been wasted/ All day long.” The ninth track, “Into Dust,” acts as a conclusion to this contemplation of life. Sandoval studies the end of something–whether it be a relationship or life–and the pain of impermanence. She sings “I could possibly be fading/ Or have something more to gain/ I could feel myself growing colder/ I could feel myself under your fate.”
The final and title track of the album “So Tonight That I Might See” is almost triumphant and contrasts greatly with the last three songs. The instrumentals and Sandoval’s speak-singing are full of enough life to bring back the dead. The song speaks to the same desire exhibited in “Blue Light” and the same detachment exhibited in “Fade Into You.” There is an ache to close the gap of separation between her and the people around her; to be able to communicate without words. The song ends with her singing “Come so close that I might see/ See the light come down on me /I hold you tight like rain/ Sunshine on a rainy day,” expressing a want for closeness and a love that is actualized.
Growing into adulthood with this album has been so important to me. The more I learn about life and love, the more sense it makes to me. So Tonight That I Might See is an incredibly special album for a lot of reasons, but I love it because of its humanity. The band takes the audience through a range of emotions that are so vast and oftentimes painful, but does it so matter-of-factly. It understands that feeling is constant and that experience is fleeting, and it does not shy away from this fact when confronted with it. It reminds you to feel deeply, let it change you and to keep moving; it knows it’s the only thing you can do. Maybe it is this sentiment that makes the album so timeless–I know it will cling to me for years to come.