"All of Me" by Watashi Wa, Thursday, October 14, 2021
IT WAS WRITTEN IN A LETTER TO ME. Maybe it was an abundance of incredible releases in 2003 that made Watashi Wa's The Love of Life fall unnoticed from the shelf. I hadn't even heard of Watashi Wa until I saw the band appear on a Tooth & Nail sampler given away with Further Seems Forever How to Start a Fire, and I bought the album on discount several years after its release. In 2003, Tooth & Nail alone had released Anberlin's and Mae's debut albums, Beloved, Lucerin Blue, the first FM Static record, Spoken's A Moment of Imperfect Clarity and Thousand Foot Krutch's Phenomenon. There were other Christian albums that I bought that year, too, like Skillet's Collide, Big Dismal's only album, Delirious's Touch. Then there was Evanescence's Fallen, which I also bought in the Family Christian store before it was removed. Maybe also there was a lack of promotion. The band didn't have a Christian Rock radio single unlike most of the bands listed. Years later, Watashi Wa's music is fine. They are a mellower Tooth & Nail band in a time when edgier pop-punk was what was making the label sore. Seth Roberts talked about his perspective of how his band fit into the arc of Tooth & Nail's success on the Labeled podcast. Roberts talks about how he tried to make music that paid tribute to his musical heroes in Tooth & Nail history, but ultimately failed to produce a record that drew the attention to make a profit for the label. After his stint with Tooth & Nail, though, Roberts would be free to create music without the pressure of sales with his new band, Lakes.
MAYBE IT'S CRAZY. Watashi Wa, Japanese for the pronoun I, featured slower, emo songs that were religious at times. According to a podcast Roberts explained that he got into Tooth & Nail Records in the '90s when he wasn't allowed to listen to secular music. The lyrics of "All of Me" read like a bloody love song. The upbeat guitars and Roberts' upbeat voice make the song sound quite positive. The perspective of the song, though, is a little troubling. First, who is the singer singing to? Is it a girlfriend? Is it God? Whomever he is singing to, his brokeness proves his authenticity. He says, "If I fall, then I'll bleed and you'll see it's all of me." In youth group, we're often told, "In your weakness, He is stronger." When I was growing up, I relied on this friend who gave me strength. But focus on the brokeness, and it will mess up your human relationships. "All of Me" sounds like a young man's love song. If you go into a relationship broken, expect to find a broken person or no one at all. If "All of Me" is a song about a committed relationship, authenticity, or showing the blood, can be step forward. In 2014, Roberts and Lakes released the album Fire Ahead, in which he processes a "rough marriage" and a "messy divorce." He told Listen: "Spending years investing your dreams, goals, time, energy, into something is kind of like building a house. So when that ‘house’ burned down, it took a great deal of sacrifice to build a new dream." Perhaps this "all-in" approach in this song "All of Me" reflects his personal life, though we can only speculate. Regardless, as a person and as a songwriter, Seth Roberts has grown. We all grow. We learn when to give it our all. We learn when we should hold back. We learn to survive.
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