la yugular rosalia

I honestly recommend the whole LUX album, but this song specifically lives in a pocket of my heart. For this album, Rosalia studied a multitude of saints and mystics from different countries and faith practices, singing in 13 different languages to evoke the spirit and mind of those saints.

My favorite is La Yugalar, in which she speaks about Sufi mystic Rabia Al Adawiyya, a freed slave and first female mystic in Sufism/islam. Rabia believed in a selfless love of Allah, being quoted saying “I want to burn down heaven and quench the fires of hell” with a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other, proving she loved Allah for their divinity and not for reward or out of fear = Ishq.

O my Lord, if I worship you from fear of hell, burn me in hell.If I worship you from hope of Paradise, bar me from its gates. But if I worship you,for yourself alone, grant me then the beauty of your Face.

Rosalia also speaks of this concept of macrocosm and microcosm which I particularly study in Islam. It’s the concept of interconnectivity, not distinguishing yourself from Allah but understanding Allah, like yourself, lives in the big and small of our everyday realities. A drop of saliva occupies the titanic, a galaxy occupies a thorn, a thorn takes up a continent, a continent takes up a galaxy, etc etc etc.

she also positions one of my favorite Quran verses: when praying don’t look up, the sky is a thorn, for Allah is closer to you than your own jugular vein (the vein that provides all life source).

Sonically, the build up of the song and the dichotomy of tackling two completely non narrow subjects in Arabic is equally impressive, real tear jerker.