‘Forget About’ by Sibylle Baier: the ultimate underrated love song
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(Credits: Far Out / Album Cover)
A good love song has the power to make us feel incredibly euphoric or equally devastated, depending on where we’re at in our own lives. Having someone who you love – and who loves you back – to attach a love song to, maybe it’ll become your song, is one of life’s simplest yet greatest joys. But listen to that same song when you’re heartbroken, or maybe when love’s unrequited, and you’ll experience soul-crushing pain. That’s the power of a good love song – although it often feels like some of the best are routinely overplayed.
Songs like The Beach Boys’ ‘God Only Knows’ or Etta James’ ‘At Last’ are beautiful, but they’re so well-known, so commonly played at weddings, that they hardly feel special anymore. There are so many love songs out there that haven’t ever been given the attention they deserve despite being stunning encapsulations of what it feels like to be in love. An incredible love song can also transcend the boundaries of romantic love and be applied to platonic and familial love. Sometimes, the greatest ones rely on their simplicity, delivering a straightforward yet evocative set of words which are accompanied by beautiful instrumentation.
If you’re looking for a criminally underrated love song, look no further than ‘Forget About’ by German folk singer Sibylle Baier. Although her only album, Colour Green (which features ‘Forget About’), was released in 2006, it was recorded in the early 1970s in Baier’s home. She never intended to share her personal and intimate home recordings with the world, yet when her son, Robby, found the tapes, he encouraged her to release them decades later.
In a rare interview, Baier revealed that when Robby started playing the tapes in front of some of her family and friends, she was “embarrassed” and “uncomfortable” that these relics of her life as a young woman had suddenly resurfaced for everyone to hear. Yet, when she realised that people were deeply moved and impressed by the songs, she agreed to have them compiled into an album. We can only be thankful that Robby found these recordings and encouraged his mother to release them because among these beautiful tracks is one of the most simple yet tender love songs ever written.
‘Forget About’ uses a rather melancholic-sounding acoustic guitar as its base, but Baier’s declarations of love are full of hope and appreciation. The lyrics are also slightly ambiguous in terms of who she’s singing to – you could apply these words to your lover as much as you could your son or daughter. Baier opens with the lines “You made me forget about/ Have, want, exert,” suggesting that when she’s with the subject of her song, nothing else matters – not things she has to do, wanting new material possessions or even the things she already has.
“And all of a sudden, I feel proud/ Of being, without saying a word,” she continues, highlighting the fact that she feels totally at peace, and even in silence, it’s comfortable. The subject has also helped her to “forget about past and pain” – all she cares about is the beauty of these present moments. With a lightness in her voice, she assures that “You do me good/ You do me/ So good,” the simple nature of these words communicating her childlike joy and sheer happiness.
With the song’s subject, she is able to appreciate the smallest things that we’d typically take for granted, such as “the way you wear your shirt,” which she calls “beautiful.” Baier could’ve easily said, “Your shirt,” but she emphasises “the way you wear it” – this distinction reflects the depth of her love, which has caused her to notice typically mundane things and look at them through a romanticised lens.
‘Forget About’ is an intimate, special song that feels as though it should be reserved for those quiet, contemplative moments. Listen to this when you’re feeling lonely, and it might send you over the edge, but if you’re in love, this song will feel heaven-sent, condensing such a grandiose feeling into a few simple yet gorgeous words.
Listen to the song below.
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