Haiva Ru's "Oh, But Lover" Is a Poetic Letter About Loss [Premiere]
Photo By: Brittany O'brien
Humans have an inescapable desire to speak to themselves, gifting their own selves personal advice, hard earned guidance and nuance earned over time. Think of it as a form of self-parenting that is inevitably meant to help us avoid the pitfalls of life.
Haiva Ru had a rare, patient teacher who afforded herself such an opportunity. The teacher kept a letter Haiva Ru penned in the fourth grade with her childhood hopes for her own future. When Haiva Ru turned 21, the teacher mailed it to her. To appreciate, is the perspective Haiva Ru gained from that experience. Whatever the advice from your past self or the way you deal with challenges placed before you, the real gift is discovering all the friends and experiences you have collected that help you manage the unexpected bumps along the road.
What you do with your friends and experiences is as important as the perspective they offer. Newcomer Haiva Ru has directed a beautiful homage to her halcyon coping tools: her best friends, a shared house she loved and the backdrop of her town. “Oh, But Lover” has a familiar refrain lyrically, the visual accompaniment buoys it with a mnemonic montage that pulls the song to its nostalgic essence. Its intimacy is as obvious as Haiva, who writes and performs all her own music, also directed the video. It takes the form of a poetic letter to youth itself.
The context is a routine day in the life buttressed by the aforementioned letter, splashed with beautiful sun-dripped to sunset vignettes of her SoCal roots. Haiva describes the song as “almost celebrating a loss.” While the video "was meant to have you laughing and smiling about the losses… It truly is a special bookmark for me.“ Indeed, what could be more human than to choose to celebrate a sense of loss by surrounding herself with everything most dear to her. While this may be an early place marker in the chapters of Haiva Ru’s life, we expect many more chapters from this prodigious talent, a rare earnest voice with great storytelling depth.
