Shakespeare’s quotability has made him a popular song subject; his countless works have been the titles/subjects of many songs and Zella Day’s Sweet Ophelia is no different. Zella Day Kerr, or better known as Zella Day, is an American singer-songwriter from Pinetop, Arizona specializing in indie pop. This particular song of her espouses on the age of lost innocence, using Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet as the carrier of the metaphor. The chorus go as follows:
Sweet Ophelia!
When young blood escapes
Vows that break
Go up, up away
Sweet Ophelia!
When young blood escapes
Vows that break
Go up, up away
Genius.com
The young blood, is quite literally a reference to actual blood, and is the blood of a virgin that is being lost through “vows that break”, foreshadowing the breakage of marital vows of sex after marriage. It does go deeper than that. On her official Tumblr account, Zella is asked about the inspiration for the song and this is her answer:
Sweet Ophelia is about fragility. I wrote it at a time when the person I had lost my virginity to left me for somebody else. I felt betrayed. The only thing I could do was write about it.
Tumblr.com
Zella takes the Shakespearean metaphor and put a personal touch on it. All I can say is that what is left after that is a haunting song that reminds us that anything can happen at any time.
That we are all fragile in some way.
