Song Review: "Orchid" by Rose Alaimo

I first discovered the music of Rose Alaimo in November of 2020. I had a week off from work and found myself exploring some of the excellent music being made by independent artists with a presence on Twitter. I found a community of talented musicians promoting their own work and appreciating each other’s efforts.

Rose Alaimo was one of these artists. I listened to several songs from her first album, “The Importance of Centers,” and liked them enough to mention them in a Twitter thread I put together on Bandcamp Friday. I decided that my favorite of those songs was “Ghosts.”

Rose was one of many artists I discovered that week, and, while I enjoyed her music, I didn’t pay as much attention to it as I would later. This was due to finding so much to listen to all at once, and I jumped from catalogue to catalogue like a kid in a candy store.

So let’s skip ahead to several months into 2021. I had been meeting more and more of my fellow musicians on Twitter and seeing them all follow and interact with each other. I began to notice many mentions of a song called “Orchid,” a recently released single by Rose Alaimo. I remembered liking her work and went over to Spotify to check it out.

I was completely unprepared for what I was about to hear. The song swept me way for its 5 minute and 42 second run time.

One free listen on Spotify was all it took for me to jump over to Bandcamp and buy the song, because I knew I would listen to it many more times, and I have. In fact, I liked it so much that when Rose Alaimo’s album, “Grow,” which I will review in the next post here, was released in the second half of 2021, I purchased it immediately without previewing a single note. But we’ll talk about “Grow” soon enough. Back to “Orchid!”

I complimented “Orchid” on Twitter and said something about it having a Neil Young vibe, which Rose confirmed by explaining that the song had grown out of a band of hers, years earlier, often playing Young’s “Cortez the Killer” during live performances. That was all I said then, but now I’d like to try to express just why “Orchid” is among the very best songs I’ve heard, not only in recent years, but ever.

First of all (and I’m saying this without knowing how much is intentionally planned and how much is just the result of honesty and things falling together in a wonderful way), Rose Alaimo knows exactly how to structure a song to have maximum impact on the listener.

“Orchid” begins with a few gently droning notes, sparse and calm, building for a few seconds, followed by the entrance of drums, then a cascade of chords (this is where the Neil Young vibe starts to become noticeable, although Neil’s chords and tone would likely be a little more abrasive, while Rose’s approach is smoother) and a soft bit of lead guitar. The guitar will become much more prominent soon, but we’ll get back to that, because now, half a minute in, the vocals arrive.

We get a line, a nicely sung line that begins a set of lyrics that tell (this is my interpretation; you may interpret it differently, since it’s not too specific) a love story filled with both darkness and hope. The lyrics are full of vivid imagery, descriptions, emotions. These are good words, but the vocal delivery is just as important and multiplies the impact of the lyrics by many magnitudes.

So we get the first line and we hear the voice, but the second line is the magic one.

“Yeah, it’s fucking fantastic, I know what you feel.”

It’s the unexpectedness of the song’s one bit of profanity that makes it so effective. We don’t see it coming, and if, somehow, we haven’t been giving our full attention to what the singer is saying, we most certainly are not going to ignore a single syllable now. A line, a hint of sarcasm, almost a threat to listen to the story or else! We’d be listening anyway, since it’s a good song, but now our attention is assured. That’s the question when it comes to Rose’s songwriting. Did she plan that? Is it strategic songwriting? Or is it absolute honesty that comes across so well that it does the job just as well as planning? As curious as I am, being a songwriter myself, I’m not sure if, as a listener, I want to know.

And so the story continues, and the listener is fully immersed in it now and the lyrics, delivered by wonderfully flowing vocals, make us care about this story. It’s captivating and pulls us in so deeply that when, in the third verse, we arrive at the song’s most powerful line, “I’ve loved you for centuries, come back to me,” the raw emotion is almost crushing (in a good way). That line is delivered, simultaneously, as both a plea and a command. There’s desperation in it, but also the force of someone who will not take no for an answer. Perhaps the idea of “no” is simply unthinkable at this point.

Lyrically and vocally, this is an amazing performance. The words tell the story beautifully. The vocals soar with power, but also contain the nuance needed to show an entire range of emotions.

But those lyrics and vocals are only part of what makes “Orchid” so good.

The music is just as important and just as impressive.

I’m not going to go into detail about the drums or bass. They are very good and do their job within the context of the song, but I’m not a drummer or bassist. I’m a guitarist, so that’s the instrument that I naturally, instinctively pay the most attention to and feel I have the most right to analyze. So, the guitar work in “Orchid.”

The guitar!

Before I get to the specific style of guitar playing in this song, I have to mention the guitar tone. Now, I’m no expert on tone. I’m not very knowledgeable when it comes to effects and amps and technical details. Yes, I’m a guitarist, but when I write a song I simply choose between acoustic or electric guitar and then, if it’s going to be electric, I tell my engineer what sort of sound I want and how much overdrive I need. So I’m not going to guess how Rose achieved the guitar tone of “Orchid,” but I know what I like, and I love the guitar tone on this song!

The tone is powerful, but never dirty. Strong but smooth. So big and full that it occupies every bit of space it can, but without ever overwhelming the other instrumentation or the vocals.

This tone, as it should, supports the context of the song. I marveled at the sound of the guitar, but never enough to lose sight of the big picture, which is the song itself.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that if someone asked me who was responsible for some of my favorite guitar tones, the first names that would come to mind today would probably be David Gilmour, Carlos Santana, and Rose Alaimo.

The tone is clean when steadily rolling under the vocals, with large, flowing chords and, when needed, just enough distortion to give it a powerful kick.

Between the first and second verses, graceful lead guitar work winds in and out, adding detail to the story we’re already being told by the lyrics.

Then, between verses two and three, there’s a solo, and it’s one hell of a solo!

I’ve mentioned Neil Young. There’s a definite Neil Young influence on the song, as confirmed by the song’s creator. So, does the solo sound like Neil Young?

Well, honestly, it sounds like a Neil Young sort of solo played by David Gilmour. It’s emotionally powerful, as it must be to follow the vocal verse that led into it, but it’s also smooth as silk. Not that it never roars, because it does. There are some well-timed guitar growls in there, a fierce emphasis to remind us that the story being told in this song is no joke, but it’s also graceful, with every phrase carefully chosen and executed. It soars. It reaches a great emotional height. But it never takes us out of the song either. And, when the solo ends, it puts us right back into the story, dropping us off for the next verse.

Solos can sometimes seem like separate entities, interruptions to the song. This one doesn’t. It fits perfectly. This isn’t the sort of solo that comes from a guitarist trying to show off. It demonstrates how good of a guitarist Rose Alaimo is because it works musically. As acting teachers often advise their students to do on stage, this solo shows, not tells.

And we have the third verse, and then….a second solo! And this one is different than the first, but just as good and goes into what sounds to me like some Stephen Stills territory (or Stills interpreted by Gilmour), which, of course, fits right in with the Neil Young vibe. And when the song finally fades out after a final vocal chorus over the tail end of the second solo, you’ll probably sit there stunned for a few minutes because the experience has pulled you out of whatever was going on in your mind before it started. This is a song that occupies the entire mind.

And that’s “Orchid,” and it’s great. I just listened to it several more times while writing this review because I didn’t want to neglect to mention any aspect of it. And, I’m happy to report, it hasn’t lost any of its potency after repeated listening. In fact, it gets better every time. Even though I now know what’s coming, it still (forgive the bad pun) strikes all the right chords.

“Orchid” is one of the best songs I encountered in the past year. If you like great songwriting, great vocals, excellent guitar playing, poetic lyrics, or are a fan of any of the guitarists whose work I compared aspects of “Orchid” to, I highly recommend you check it out.

It’s fucking fantastic, you’ll like what you hear!

You can find "Orchid" and all of Rose Alaimo's music on