#skam esp is ALMOST making me come back to this blog

[softnorwegians]

hi there! i've loved your blog and skam insights for so long, and was really intrigued about what you wrote in your tags about how the use of cherry wine re even's pov was masterful. if you were interested, i'd love to here more about your thoughts in relation to even and cherry wine. no pressure though! sending lots of love, esp after your recent car accident - i've been in one before and they really are so scary and traumatic. i hope you're okay xxx

Aww, thank you, that’s so sweet~ I’m sorry to hear you’ve been through it too but yeah, it shakes you up even when everyone is okay. I think it’s one of those moments that just makes you remember how much is out of your control. I’m honored to have been a go-to blog for so long, it’s hard to believe someone could still be interested in more over a year later! hahaha, I keep thinking I’ve meta-ed all I possibly can… yet somehow, there’s still a little more to scratch? I don’t think I have too much to say except the obvious but I’ll say that for you! 💕 

Okay, so, at that point, we’d already established a lot: song lyrics as a mode of communication from Even, his love of Nas, and more than that, the music in Skam s3 had already been very meta, it’s almost a larger-than-life part of the show. The use of Cherry Wine stands out for me because it came at this heightened moment; there probably wasn’t a time in the season when viewers more wanted an update than after that Friday when everything fell apart. So, we wound up in this interesting place, where we were more ready and anxious to hear from Even than Isak was. The lyrics of Cherry Wine are moving in and of themselves but I think they were even more so because… we immediately get it. That Even doesn’t feel like he can reach out more than indirectly and his meaning with this one is really transparent. It starts here:

The noise in my head, the curse of the talented

Which pings right away as him acknowledging his bipolar, an emotional moment in itself because it’s really the first time we get to see him do that. It’s the first time that Isak and Even and the audience are all on the same page here. In the same text we get:

Strong communicator,vagabondI gallivant around the equator, And that would get me off the radar

Less direct but there’s this sense of owned unreliability (vagabond, gallivant) and also not wanting to be seen (get me off the radar, though I like the other copy of the lyrics that he didn’t use better “if that would get me off the radar”) that really clicks with Even as we’ve seen him; seemingly confident, unpredictable, and in this place of not wanting to tell Isak (before it came out on its own). 

Then there’s a break and next:

It’s so intense, I’m on my Lilo and StitchPour my Pino Grigio with some lime what is this?

Again, it’s an easy read to see him relating this to being bipolar with “It’s so intense, I’m on my Lilo and Stitch”. There’s even a sense of being in a usual state (with on marking it as not always something happening but my marking it something reoccurring and personal) of being pulled in two directions (Lilo and Stitch) there. 

An immaculate version of me and my babyWith all respect ‘cause you the only one that gets me

This keys in perfectly with us just having established ‘baby’ as their petname of choice in the scene the night before. And “an immaculate version” fits really well with that night too, with the white sheets and “uendelig” and the purity of that moment, as well as all the different ‘versions’ of Isak-and-Even being their thing. (This is especially notable as a lyrical pick Even would have had to make himself, because that’s the clean version of the lyrics and not the original ones.) And obviously “With all respect ‘cause you the only one that gets me”… my heart. 😭😭😭 That line really hurts because Even is putting it all out there, how much being with Isak has meant to him, how real it’s been for him and how he’s felt like Isak really gets him… but it’s only coming after Isak is thinking he doesn’t really know him at all. Which Even would be well aware was likely to be happening right now.

Where is he? The man who was just like meI heard he was hiding somewhere I can’t seeWhere is he? The man who was just like meHeard he was hiding somewhere I can’t see

And then obviously this hurtssss too because you know it’s a question Even probably asked in more than one way, he probably did ask where Isak was when he was coming down from the episode and now he’s more figurative asking it. And once again reinforcing the connection and similarity between them, right as he’s aware it might be breaking… ouch.

And I’m alone and I realize that when I get homeI wanna go through my red and my cherryYes, I’m alone and I realize when I get homeI wanna go through my red and my cherry

“And I’m alone and I realize that when I get home” just… it makes me think Julie Andem had this song in mind all along when structuring the end of ep 8. This is why it feels so masterful, it’s speaking for Even without requiring him to actually speak. We couldn’t really get anymore from Even at this point because Isak is our pov character and he isn’t ready to talk to him again but Cherry Wine brings us through exactly what Even must have gone through post 15:15-1:01 himself. On one hand, there’s an underlying unease you get from the resignation of “And I’m alone” moving to “Yes, I’m alone”. It fits into how he feels alone in his brain and also how he was talking the night before about losing what they had, anticipating it before it happened. The melancholy and yearning feeling of this section, the reaching out with “I wanna go through my red and my cherry” is perfect to bring you from Even last night to Even now. It’s especially poignant, how much the lyrics are about searching and calling out. As he’s showing by sending these lyrics in the first place, Even might have been telling himself that losing Isak was inevitable but he doesn’t want to. He’s still reaching out with this, it’s just in a very heartbreaking way.

Yeah, yeah, let’s pour some cherry wineEverything’s good, everything’s fineYeah, yeah, we bring it every timeYeah, pour a little cherry wine

Yeah, hey yo, salaam, yeah, I think they know the timeEverything’s good, everything’s fineYeah, pour a little cherry wine, yeahLife is good, life is good, yeah

Life is good, no matter whatLife is good, life is goodLife if [sic] good, yeah, no matter whatLife is good

And then the lyrics end with this repetition of both “Everything’s good, everything’s fine” and “Life is good” that here reads like an attempt at self-reassurance, an attempt to keep things together when things clearly aren’t fine and Even isn’t able to see that “life is good” at all. The staccato repetition of the end is something that becomes a good split between Even and Isak’s perspectives too: for Even, it feels like he needs to keep repeating this to himself, keep trying to tell himself this and for Isak, it emphasizes how all of this is speeding past as he reads, not really getting through and seeming an incomprehensible stream of words.

That’s the other real point of genius with this, it’s well established to us that Isak isn’t getting all this from the lyrics. The clip opens with this tense, ominous guitar riff and Isak reading about bipolar disorder and the sound of all these texts coming in close together that he’s ignoring. So of course we get it, that he doesn’t get it. That it seems like maybe another inexplicable thing Even is doing because he’s manic, that it reminds Isak too much of the incoherent strings of biblical texts that he gets from his mother and ignores. It also opens with this already in progress (the first thing we hear is a text arriving) and since the lyrics we get are the end of the song, it’s very likely Even has been sending him the whole thing. Which makes it easier for us to do a targeted reading on what Even means by this but harder for Isak. 

And then there’s this really nice other layer that comes with Skam being very grounded in the real world, that you can go read about the song and any meta about it does exist for them too. So this time, it was such a punch in the gut to have someone point out after this clip:

Annnnnnd know that Even would most likely know that as a fan of Nas. You can even go back and pick through the rest of the lyrics we didn’t see him send and do a deep read on them too, like “I want some who like the champagne I like / My a-alike, someone to talk me off the bridge any day or night” and know Even is over there connected to this too. So now we get to go into this week hearing about what Even is feeling from Even himself… and yet we kind of got this message under Isak’s nose. He was there, he read it too but only we fully got the message. This was just such a smart way to make use of his limited perspective.

Cherry Wine is more vital than it might seem because it’s really our one window into Even’s thoughts before we get his text in at the end of ep 9. I think it serves to get us there, to see just how deeply this could have effected him, when we have an idea of how much Even much is trying to say and the response being “Hi Even. I don’t understand shit right now. Stop texting me.” It allows us to be more in Even’s head with the depth of the loss he feels, which is important when he’s about to go to such a low place after this.