“Wait a Minute!” by WILLOW

Song of the week

The song “Wait a Minute!” by WILLOW was released on her album Ardipithecus in 2015. The song to most is about a relationship she is happy to be in. What drew me to this song is the almost hidden spiritual meaning in the words that most overlook because it is unexpected. I was not clued into this either until I saw the album cover and something clicked. The cover is of a person in five different states of being. They start curled in a ball looking depressed and slowly through the versions of this person they start to stand; The different images starting on the left then progressing right. In the last image of the person, they are blue and levitating with a third eye open on their forehead.

WILLOW struggled with self-harm after she released her debut song “Whip my Hair.” Fame was not what she thought it would be and she fell into a deep dark place. She apparently had a spiritual awakening that helped her stop all of a sudden. Looking into spirituality, there is a lot of talk about the third eye which is a mystical concept concerning an eye on your forehead that allows you to have perception beyond ordinary sight. The last person on the album cover image progression has this third eye. It also appears that the five people on the cover are stages of enlightenment which can be seen spiritually as such or secular as a person overtime healing and learning to love all living things including themselves.

The song starts with “Wait a minute / I think I left my conscience on your front doorstep / Wait a minute / I think I left my consciousness in the sixth dimension.” She starts heavily implying that there is a conscience outside the physical body. She also refers to herself having a soul throughout the song. Do you believe in different dimensions? We are in the third dimension and there is the possibility of others out there we don’t have access to. There is a belief in the spiritual community that souls exist in those higher dimensions all the time and we are connected to them. From my perspective this is what she is referring to here. The line about her conscience being on a doorstep could also be referring to the idea of astral projection. Astral projection is an out of body experience which some believe you can control and use to travel places seperate from the physical body. Which leads us back into the love aspect of the song saying she stays with this person she loves all the time mentally. Whether is it the idea of astral projection or her thinking about him.

“But I’m here right now, right now / Just sitting in a cloud oh wow.” This is possibly referring to the idea of living in the present being the best way to be at peace. If she is thinking spiritually it can be overwhelming to believe in so much existing outside of what we know and understand as a society. She could simply be centering her mind thinking that if all this is true and her soul exists outside the physical body as well, she is still herself living her life.

The chorus says “Hold on, wait a minute / Feel my heart’s intention / Hold on, wait a minute / I left my consciousness in the sixth dimension / Left my soul in his vision / Let’s go get it, oh, oh.” From where I’m sitting, It looks like the line wait a minute is about her spiritual awakening and realizing her, could be, beliefs. She asks us to feel her intention which is about how her intention writing these lyrics is pure and from the heart. One thing I found myself asking is; Who is the he she refers to? She left her soul in the universes or God’s vision? Could she be referring to a higher power; possibly. Let’s go get it is about meditation which is thought to make you feel at one with the world around you including the universe. Let’s meditate and go find my soul in that higher place. This is surely a lot to take in and to put in one song.

There is a theme of love throughout the song I do not want to lose in the pandemonium of all the other big ideas she tackles. She says “I’ll run my hands through your hair / You wanna run your fingers through mine.” This demonstrates a common theme of love but I will not talk about it further since it is self explanatory and does not appear to be the main idea of the song.

She has an allusion to the movie “Avatar” imbedded in the lyrics. She sings the words “oel ngati kameie” which is a pick up line in the alien language used in the movie. Could this be a reference to aliens involved in her beliefs somehow? There is a lot in this song that refers to spirituality which is an idea that we don’t know a lot about and definitely a perspective not accepted by a lot of people. Overall, the song is about love and spirituality as far as I can tell. What do you think? Is the world ready to look at life from this perspective? What do you think the song is about?