Singer, songwriter and guitarist Becca Stevens deftly navigates nebulous terrain in "The Riddle," which initially comes across as a cautionary tale: She warns against falling in love with a woman whose heart already belongs to someone else, and whose head is filled with confusion. "If you love her, you will lose it," Stevens sings against a rustic backdrop. "Her head's a fog, her heart's under construction."
But late in the jazzy pop song, Stevens hints that she may be more emotionally invested in this potentially doomed romance than she initially let on: "Here you are, but you're not ready to let me know if it's really time for you / But all the stars are pointing to you, so why the hell can't I simply be with you?" Here, exuding frustration instead of false concern, Stevens speaks a universal language: that of a tormented soul pining for an unrequited love.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
