Peppermint Blue
Eiichi Ohtaki
A quiet summer longing, reaching for something pure
What do these signals mean?
- Edifying: Points the heart toward God, truth, hope, or love.
- Worth Weighing: Real good and real concern together. Test it before you take it in.
- Take Caution: Leans toward what could dull or mislead. Approach carefully.
- Consider Avoiding: Celebrates what Scripture warns against. Little here builds up.
Weighed against Scripture
“Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.”
The song's ache for love that is deep, unhurried, and almost too intense to hold resonates with the Scriptures' own portrait of love as a force that overwhelms and outlasts.
“LORD, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.”
The narrator's desire for a love 'as transparent as water' mirrors the psalmist's quieted soul, stilled rather than striving, content to be present.
'Peppermint Blue' is a still-life of a summer afternoon: two people, a balcony, the sea, and the quiet weight of something left unsaid. The narrator watches the beloved with soft reverence, and near the end voices a wish that their love could be as clear and unhurried as water. The beloved slips away, leaving only a smile. It is wistful and honest, the kind of song that names human longing without pretending to resolve it.
Wholly gentle imagery: sea breezes, blue soda, a shy smile, the sound of a distant ship's horn. No coarse content anywhere.
The narrator wishes their love could be 'as transparent as water,' as patient as waves reshaping sand. That ache for purity and tenderness points toward something more than sentiment.
Ohtaki crafts nostalgia with care. The song holds a bittersweet moment without bitterness, letting beauty and longing coexist. It is clearly meant to move, not to mislead.
When you sit with this song's wish for love that is pure and unhurried, where do you sense that longing ultimately comes from, and where might it be pointing?
