“White”: Frank Ocean’s OF Tape Stunner is a Surreal Trip in Conceptualizing Mortality
We don’t like to think about death. The mere mention of it can engulf us in dread, gloom, confusion, and endless questions. Yet the acknowledgement of its inevitability can also allow us to experience gratitude, develop perspective, and create a deeper intention in our life. Often, we experience these two sides simultaneously. Death gives meaning to life, and life gives meaning to death. Reflections of this dark and sacred paradox spur Frank Ocean’s “White”, off Odd Future’s The OF Tape Vol. 2, as he tackles emotionally intense questions of mortality, existence, and reality head-on with surreal imagery and philosophical contemplation.
“White” acts as a startling contrast to the rest of Odd Future 2012’s debut, a moment of meditation in an otherwise aggressive and animated album. The song starts as a near acapella except for the ever-so-light piano keys that gently touch and leave the track every few seconds, adding just enough of a lingering softness to compliment Frank’s tender and angelic vocals. Every few lines, there is a slight pause with a couple beat-breaks, giving the vocals room for a silky echo and allowing us just a moment to breathe and reflect. The unique minimalistic nature of the track is intoxicating, like you’ve been drawn into the cosmic stirrings of Frank’s own mind, his ruminations causing us to bend and question our very realities.
“Could this be Earth? Could this be light? / Does this mean everything is going to be alright?”
Frank is grasping to comprehend this world around him. He wonders if he can even accept his existence at face value — is he truly alive or is he in the often-marketed white light that exits us from this world? He wonders if it even matters, or if it’s simply more pressing that things will be okay. So often our world can feel senseless, random, and absurd that our attempts to shout philosophical questions into its abyss reveal a deeper cry for a bit of peace.
Despite his confusion, Frank continues to explore this abyss.
“One look out my window, there’s trees talking like people / I’ve dreamt of storms, I’ve dreamt of sound / I’ve dreamt of gravity keeping us around / I’ve slept in the darkness, it was lonely, and it was silent”
Frank evokes the most surreal imagery in these few lines. There are direct mentions of dreaming of physical things that exist in reality —trees, storms, sounds, and gravity — and how they’ve kept him and unnamed others from falling apart. The physical properties of our world literally allow us to stay together and communicate, yet they are also the base ingredient for human connection to exist. He uses the physical experience of sleeping in the darkness as a metaphor for his lack of this connection—by emotionally closing himself off to the world, he has found a dichotomy between this darkness and the light he professes to may have found in the first couple lines. Frank is realizing that attempting to find this light is fruitless without the support, guidance, and community of others.
He tries to make sense of this human connection.
“What is this love? I don’t feel the same / Don’t believe what this is could be given a name.”
Frank finds a dark disbelief in our need to create and use language to describe the overwhelming feelings that can floor us and move us. Frank imagines the idea of language as futile, attempting to somehow encapsulate the soul-crushing and heart-soaring experiences we all have in words. He wonders if a four letter word can confine an emotion that has motivated so much of humanity for eons. As these lines come and go, we may question if we were ever given the linguistic bandwidth to express the emotions that lay dormant in our heart.
The deepest, darkest, and most dormant emotion we struggle to articulate is our fear of death. With the last lines of this song, Frank somehow finds a way.
“But I’ll forget 23 like I forget 17 / And I forget my first love like you forget a daydream / And what of all my wild friends, and the times I’ve had with them / We’ll all fade to grey soon, on the TV station”
Frank reflects on the ephemeral nature of our most cherished experiences. The moments that feel so vivid today can sometimes be impossible to recall years later. Weeks, months, years, and overall phases of our life blur together and all we can remember is a kaleidoscopic semblance of emotions, thoughts, and flashbacks. These memories begin to feel like faded dreams and sometimes we question if they even happened. We think of our loved ones and the “wild times” we had together, knowing these moments that were life-defining for us will eventually leave our minds, along with the minds of every mortal person.
As Frank Ocean completes his soliloquy, the brass instrumentation softly erupts onto the scene, providing solace to the lonely piano keys. This beautiful and idiosyncratic fusion evokes a somber image of Frank free-falling through the mental chasm he has created for himself. The sudden change in musical pace is abrasive, like the banalities and harsh truths of the world rushing back in after we have a moment of inner peace and perspective. As the song ends, we’re left with many more questions to ask ourselves and the world around us. With each question we ask, all we can hope for is that we become a bit more sane, a bit more seasoned, and a bit more steady.
Every time I hear this song, I experience an immediate out of body experience. I feel hoisted up out of this world into some type of surreal white space. Everything is quiet. Soft. There is a nothingness. It is both melancholy and lonely. Yet there is a peacefulness — a sense of relief from the everyday mundane chaos of the world.
I see my memories in front of me. My happiest moments play out in gray, flickering like an old VHS tape. I know soon the film will get so weary that no one will be able to watch it anymore. For a moment, it makes me sad. But then I remember it had a time to exist. I let go of my claim to keep this tape playing forever. I make peace with the fact it’ll live for as long as it can.
I close my eyes. I smile. I remember the tape is not over.
And I press record.
