"She Knows"

A breathless Goth love song, if there could be such a thing. Balaam & the Angel were a brief glimmer at the tail-end of the black-clad 80s; they barely rippled the charts and before I could blink they were gone, it seemed. But this pearl of a song fell out of the murk and rolled to my feet, and it's been with me ever since. It's got the kind of guitar sound the Cure would have killed for, like water running off your face as you stand in a waterfall, and the vocal is strained, uncertain yet happy in its precarious position. After all the games, the toying, the teasing, the songs says: "She knows/Just what to say/She knows/Why I feel this way." There's celebration, wonder, joy, a healthy dose of bewilderment and the hint of something a little darker; it's as if he's saying "you're taking me outside my comfort zone, but it's OK." After all, love involves risk as well as security, doesn't it?