dvsn: "Too Deep"

The first lines sung on Toronto singer dvsn‘s “Too Deep” are not his own. They belong to a female counterpart: “I won’t make you pull out/ Getting it all tonight.” Immediately, all subtlety is gone. There are wry attempts at double entendres, but the song is explicitly about sex. That’s the easy part. Dvsn keeps the subject matter in the bedroom throughout “Too Deep”, leaving love as the topic he can’t address directly. Sung with gospel choir bravado, the hook (“I think we’re, in, too, deep/ Don’t wanna, pull out”) is so sexually on-the-nose that it borders on pornographic, but everything else about this relationship is a little uncertain.

The inertia of the thudding bass grounds the song’s power. In contrast, the melodic choral backing and dvsn’s delicate voice move it forward with the belief that one night is enough for salvation. He knows something’s amiss, but the endorphin rush of “Too Deep” is incredibly hopeful. Despite its foreboding subtext, “Too Deep” remains a joyous track: even when the grand scheme is bleak, moments can still provide the clarity that you want to believe in.

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