I’m definitely late to the party, but I have not been able to stop listening to Muscadine Bloodline for the past few weeks.
I first heard “Porch Swing Angel” while writing an article about the best songs to listen to while sitting on the back porch, and it hasn’t left my monthly playlists since.
“Porch Swing Angel” is this sweet song about finding the girl who feels like a Sunday afternoon on the porch. Simple, steady, mundane.
But it’s the second verse that has really cements my obsession with this one.
The song seems to follow two couples, and while the first couple is already together, the second singer has not even told this girl his feelings.
Why? Because they’re friends, and he doesn’t want to ruin that:
“Want to tell her how I feel
I don’t want to scare her away
We’ve been friends for a long time
I don’t want to change that today . . .”
Now, one of my absolute favorite romance tropes is friends-to-lovers (especially when slow burn is added in there).
I get that enemies-to-lovers is the most popular trope at the moment, but I can’t help but be drawn to the couples that start out completely platonic and then slowly grow into and realize there’s something more.
“Porch Swing Angel” perfectly captures that “uh oh” moment that often comes with this trope.
Once one party realizes their romantic feelings for the other, there’s often this angst about whether or not they should come clean about their feelings.
Of course, because fictionalized romance tends to amp up emotions to make the consumer more invested, the person with feelings often will reveal them in some dramatic way.
Something happens, and they just can’t hold it back anymore. *swoon*
The rest of the second verse really plays into those feelings of angst and anxiety about keeping their feelings a secret:
“I’m sick of fighting these feelings
Cause I ain’t slept in days
I’m tired of hanging on this limb
Cause I can’t find the right words to say . . .”
The verse is then followed by the chorus, which perfectly explains his feelings.
The beauty of friends-to-lovers is that since the characters are friends first there is a level of comfortability and mundanity that comes with the relationship.
Having this singer agonize over telling this girl how he feels, but then describing her as having “a smile like Sunday” and being the only thing he needs shows that the two already have a strong foundation.
I will die on the hill that friends-to-lovers is one of the best tropes, and this Muscadine Bloodline song only proves my point.
Dig the hat too…
