Even after all these years, I still find myself listening to ‘Rosa’ by Grimes. There’s something about its quiet presence that makes it linger in the mind — like a faint scent or a dream half-remembered.
The song, as Grimes once shared, was written for her friend Rosa after a night spent partying with mutual friends. Rosa later emailed, worrying that she had been “a mess.” In response, Grimes composed a song — not as a rebuttal, not as comfort, but as an affirmation: you were fine just the way you were.
There is no direct talk of love or heartbreak in this song. And yet, the phrase “we are separate” echoes like a soft, distant truth. It’s not a rejection, nor a farewell — but a quiet acknowledgment that two people can care deeply while not inhabiting the same space, the same time.
“I’m not in love,” she says — again and again. Not to push someone away, but perhaps to steady herself. To clarify a boundary without building a wall. It’s this space — not of indifference, but of subtle tension and mutual regard — that gives ‘Rosa’ its power.
The sound is hypnotic. The tone — minimalist, floating. As though you’re drifting underwater, remembering something just out of reach. It’s a feeling that calls back to another time — thirty years ago, perhaps — when not everything had to be named, when ambiguity was not confusion but a kind of elegance.
‘Rosa’ feels like a memory of someone you once knew well — someone whose presence still hums in the background. The closeness might be gone, the intensity faded. But the emotion lingers — not love, not friendship, but a third thing, quiet and unnamed.
It’s not a breakup song. It’s not a declaration. It’s a whisper in the hallway between two lives that once touched — gently, maybe nakedly — and then moved apart.
Grimes seems to be saying: “You were okay. You are still okay.”
And somehow, in listening, you remember someone too.
“I’m not in love. But I’m thinking of you.”
The song ends, but that feeling — the one that exists between separation and closeness — doesn’t. It stays, like Rosa herself, just at the edge of consciousness.
