On Friday, NIKI returned with “Oceans & Engines,” the second single off her upcoming album, Nicole. Like the LP’s lead single, “Before,” the song was pulled from a vault of songs NIKI had written years ago and then re-worked with the help of new producers. While NIKI wrote “Before” in college, she dates “Oceans & Engines” back to junior year of high school. She revamped the track with co-producer Jacob Ray.
“Wrote this song in 2016 when I was 17 experiencing the earth-shattering heartbreak of a first love moving away for good,” NIKI said of the track on Instagram. “It is massively dramatic & long with a naïveté & innocence I look back on fondly now at 23. Like she had no idea about what was going to happen. Like the fact that after writing it in bed at ungodly hours of an 11th grade weeknight snacking on stale cereal she would eventually revisit the song and release it years later. Life can be quite cyclical at times and that has become painfully obvious throughout the process of re-working these songs that are some years old now.”
On the first verse, NIKI recounts her final night with her lover. Whereas she’s afraid everything is about to change, her partner seems confident the distance won’t make a difference.
You wiped away tears, but not fears
Under the still and clear indigo
You said “Baby, don’t cry, we’ll be fine
You’re the one thing I swear I can’t outgrow”
NIKI moves away on the second verse, and her worst fears have come true.
How is it now that, somehow, you’re a stranger?
You were mine just yesterday
On the pre-chorus, NIKI feels as if distance ruined her relationship before she was ready.
Somethin’ beautiful died
Too soon
She decides to let go anyway on the chorus, though she’ll always hold a torch for her first love.
But I’m lettin’ go
I’m givin’ up the ghost
But don’t get me wrong
I’ll always love you, that’s why I
Wrote you this very last song
On the third verse, NIKI does her best to distract herself from the breakup. She experiments with drinking, partying, and other relationships, but none of it seems to work.
But even with gin and surgin’ adrenaline
I see you’re all that can intoxicate
Oceans and engines, you’re skilled at infringin’
On great love affairs
She’s reunited with her first love on the bridge. Their flame burns just as strong as it did two years before, making it just as hard to say goodbye again.
Tonight was the first time I stared into
Seas of beguilin’ sepia two years ago
And the first time I
Learned real world superpowers lived in three words
“Oceans & Engines” arrived alongside an equally heart-wrenching music video, directed by Isaac Ravishankara.
You can read all the lyrics to “Oceans & Engines” on Genius now.
