Harry Kappen’s “The Longing” opens FOUR with a problem older than Plato: the head says stop, the heart says go. And for three and a half minutes, he tries to reconcile both. This isn’t a singer-songwriter quietly musing in his journal, though. Kappen’s been a rock guitarist in Groningen and it shows—he builds the song as a dynamic push-pull, acoustic guitar whispering until electric riffs barge in and remind you this is a battle.
As lyrics go, subtlety isn’t the point. “Sometimes my brain’s on fire / Practicalities, Analyses, Rationality” isn’t poetry so much as a manifesto, the bluntness a virtue. Kappen’s trick is matching the words with music that dramatizes them. The soft sections aren’t background—they’re moments where the head takes the mic. Then the rock crescendos come in, vocals layered polyphonically, guitars swelling, and the heart makes its argument.
What keeps this from being just another confessional ballad-turned-anthem is the commitment to contrasts. He doesn’t merely switch between quiet and loud; he pits orchestration against raw guitar, introspection against explosion, until you feel the internal dialogue happening in real time. When he lets a guitar solo soar across the midpoint, it’s less about virtuosity than about longing itself becoming audible, stretching out, unresolved.
Kappen’s influences—Bowie, Lennon, Zeppelin, Alanis—are all in there, but never as pastiche. Instead, they’re reference points he’s absorbed into his palette. You hear Bowie in the theatrical dynamics, Lennon in the earnest lyrical bluntness, Zeppelin in the guitar heft, Alanis in the emotional directness. That blend gives “The Longing” a familiarity that doesn’t collapse into imitation.
Is it perfect? No. But that’s also the charm: Kappen doesn’t hedge. He’s not writing in metaphorical riddles. He’s telling you what’s inside his head—and heart—and making the clash ring out loud enough to rattle.
In the end, what you’re left with isn’t a neat resolution but a sonic representation of conflict itself. That’s why the lyric video’s imagery of flying through clouds fits—there’s turbulence, there’s beauty, and there’s no solid ground. For Kappen, the heart wins without the head losing entirely. For listeners, the win is a track that dramatizes what most of us live every day: wanting one thing, thinking another, and making music of the tension.
Grade: A-
–Bobby Christman
