The Heavy-Hearted Happy Song: “Dive” by Gainesville’s The Forum

If you wake up in a burning room, do you sit there and accept your fate, or do you try to make it out alive with what you can? At what point do you decide that you are ready to give up?

Dive, the latest single from alternative, Gainesville-based group The Forum, delves into this recognition of impending disaster while being too proud to resign to helplessness. Most real-world cases of this situation thankfully don’t take place in an actual room on fire (Strokes pun slightly intended), but in our relationships with others.

While The Forum are Gainesville-grown, they have been making their presence known throughout the South. This new song hints to a new trajectory for the group’s future.

“Dive” is what I would call a heavy-hearted, happy song. Instinctively, your body wants to react by getting up to dance. But upon closer attention to the lyrics, you get caught in your own thoughts.

My favorite plague within music right now is this fascination with the synth-sadness. Few other instruments have the ability to simultaneously excite and wring my heart the way a synthesizer does. There’s a certain celestial hum to the song that propels the listener’s mind forward.

I know it’s a cardinal sin of music writing to compare musicians, but frontman Michael Higgins has a sound that always makes me think of Paul Banks from Interpol. I’m willing to commit this crime for what I would deem to be a flattering statement. Sorry, music world, please forgive me and let’s move on.

Being the writing nerd that I am, one of my favorite elements of the song is the excellent use of parallel structure throughout the lyrics. The song tells a story that we can all pick apart and apply to our personal experiences.

“Dive is a song about going all-in on something you want in life, and though it may not necessarily work out, it is worth recognizing the importance of going forward without regrets because of the effort you gave,” said Higgins.

Dive is a song about going all-in on something you want in life, and though it may not necessarily work out, it is worth recognizing the importance of going forward without regrets because of the effort you gave.

There comes a point in many scenarios where the red flags build up so high that even your rose-tinted glasses can no longer obscure your view of impending failure. But a big part of growing up is owning up to your shortcomings and holding yourself accountable. Sometimes, all the effort in the world can’t keep things together that were doomed to fall apart.

“This song kind of explores the uneasiness of that type of situation, where you are the person that cares the most,” he said. “But it also recognizes that imagining things that haven’t happened does no good, because you can’t dwell on what could have been.”​

The Forum are wrapping up their tour of the South in celebration of the release of their new song (check it out below).

Follow the band on Facebook to stay up to date with all upcoming shows and announcements.

---