first round game
(14) Des’ree, “I’m Kissing You”
KISSED OFF
(3) Goo Goo Dolls, “Iris”
147-127
AND WILL PLAY IN THE SECOND ROUND
Read the essays, listen to the songs, and vote. Winner is the song/essay with the most votes at the end of the game. If there is a tie, we will play a one-hour overtime (and repeat until we have a winner). Polls close @ 9am Arizona time on 3/6/26.
moira mcavoy on the goo goo dolls’ “iris”
“And I’d give up forever to touch you, ‘cause I know that you feel me somehow.”
“Iris” opens mid-plea, knee deep in the inescapable quicksand of desire. We don’t know how this conversation started, or what bargaining came before this pledge to forego immortality, and it doesn’t really matter. We get four bars of instrumentals before we’re begging for an unpredictable future for which we’ll sacrifice infinitely from ourselves to reach, if only we’d be given the chance. That sounds dramatic, but it’s nothing compared to “Iris” itself, and that drama is its staying power. A song doesn’t become a karaoke staple, a crank-it-up in the car staple, a fan edit inspiration staple, a dancing-in-your-kitchen-in-your-underwear staple, or a collapse-on-the-couch-drunk-and-sobbing-while-texting-your-ex-after-an-otherwise-normal-night-out staple without an outsized swell of emotion.
“Iris” feels like a song I’ve always known. It was omnipresent growing up—blasting over the PA while I hid from my mother beneath circular racks of clothing in Kohl’s, in commercials on our family room TV, over the airwaves of 94.9 The Point from my bedside boombox radio as I tossed and turned in a sea of lime-green fuzz and pink-purple paisley, praying in circles for whatever fueled the unrelenting panic in my stomach to go away. In hindsight, I can point to many possible explanations for that pit-deep sense of Fundamental Wrongness: undiagnosed and thereby untreated OCD and ADHD; queerness I had no way of recognizing but with an accompanying 2000s-era shame I understood; the budding awareness that my growing, fat child’s body was seen as an aberration to be tamed; a lifetime of Catholic school and the guilt that belied it. But I didn’t know any of that then. All I knew was that I was Different, and thereby I was Wrong, hyper-visible yet totally unseen, and thereby I could not want, let alone be wanted.
Obviously, “Iris” hit adolescent me like a truck. A few years later, I’d spend one of my cold hard iTunes gift card dollars for it to be one of my first ever legal downloads, looped endlessly on my pink iPod mini as I yearned for whatever life-altering, meaning-making thing could possibly be awaiting the speaker at the end of his journey.
Despite being one of the greatest, most visceral love songs of all time, “Iris” was not born of love; it was borne, instead, of desire—for prestige, notoriety, and to play on the same soundtrack as Alanis Morrisette. Written for the middling, existential Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan movie City of Angels (a remake of the German film Wings of Desire) by the frontman of what was originally a cover band, “Iris” acts as a cultural prism for every sense of longing. Its origin story is one of refraction, layers of interpretation on interpretation and performance on performance.
In context of its inspiration “Iris” is an almost off-puttingly direct song. Cage’s character—an immortal angel who only appears visible to humans when a chosen singular individual is close to death—quite literally gives up forever to touch Meg Ryan. She is now the closest to heaven that he will ever be because he is no longer an angel, and he gave up his angelic home so that Meg Ryan and the rest of the world could literally see him instead of being invisible and immortal forever. Thankfully, that movie is not what this song is actually about, not on any culturally or personally meaningful level, anyway. “Iris” is about yearning, wanting, needing. It is one of the most commercially successful songs of all time, and its composition, full of sweeping strings and driving guitars, makes this success feel like destiny, the song a manifestation of desire realized.
It’s miraculous alchemy that the song works as well as it does. The simple lyrics ache with want, and the performance elevates that want to need. Any one facet goes missing, and the entire thing falls apart. See: the infamous Maggie Rogers & Phoebe Bridgers charity duet cover from 2020. Despite theoretically having all of the ingredients for something I would personally love, the subdued, whisper-singing-meets-belting rendition does not coalesce into anything moving. The yearning, the agony, the desperation do not come through as heartily when stripped down to two mis-matched vocalists and a guitar—eschewing the grandiosity of the original leaves the cover ringing as resignation. The song is not about wanting, but needing, loudly, unavoidably.
This unabashed vocalization of need is in large part why I think that, while everyone loves “Iris,” queer people REALLY love “Iris.” The fear that no one can ever know you but your lover (if even your lover)? And that being known by that lover intrinsically means being socially incompatible and misunderstood? And deciding that would still be worth it at the end of the day? All wrapped in the bombastic, swelling instrumentals? The nascent queer experience personified.
I have written for this tournament six times, and nearly every single essay has, on some level, been about my fear of actually knowing myself. Music feels like the ultimate mirror; if I listen to something on a loop long enough, dig through the lyrics intelligently enough, venerate the idea of self-reflective naval gazing enough, I will be granted permission by myself to see myself. The searching itself could be enough. It never is.
It took me nearly a decade to come to terms with my sexuality, and even longer to admit that anyone else would eventually have to know about it, and longer still to conceptualize that I must negotiate my own relationship to gender. I dip a toe in here and there with different people in different corners of my life, disclosing different levels of information, wants, and needs, never letting myself actually fully advocate for anything, because I can’t even begin to admit what that might be to myself. It’s an endless cycle of whispering into a void that commands a shout.
I don’t actually think “Iris” is a sad song. “Iris,” I think, is desperate and afraid, teetering on the precipice of doom, but never going over. Even in the City of Angels, Nicolas Cage’s character trades an uncertain eternity for what is ultimately one evening of being known, seen, touched, before Meg Ryan’s sudden death the next morning. It is fleeting, but his pleas are answered, and that fleeting moment is euphoric.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe “Iris” flings us off the cliff into an inescapable, solitary abyss while a repetition of “I just want you to know who I am” mocks us in an endless echo all the way down. But, still the strings swell, still the drums cascade, and then the flurry of sound gives way to a calm wake of tinkling mandolin, a soft place to land. I just need to believe that fate isn’t inevitable; I have to believe that I feel the pull down, look toward the way out, and choose to scream its name.
Moira McAvoy lives, writes, and promotes concerts in Washington, DC. McAvoy’s first book, Taylor Swift: Album by Album, is out now from Motorbooks. Additional work can be found in The Rumpus, wig-wag, The Financial Diet, and elsewhere. Self-indulgent sadness is no longer Moira’s favorite hobby.
EMILY PODWOISKI ON DES’REE’S “I’M KISSING YOU”
I walked down the aisle to this song
Wow 😯. I’d cry by the end of the isle
I’m daydreaming about wedding songs again. I am not ‘engaged,’ though my boyfriend of nearly four years insists that we are a betrothed couple. That’s because during a recent road trip to Seaside—also known as “the Jersey Shore of Oregon”—I told him I’d marry whoever finds me a sand dollar on the beach.
Unfazed by the rising tide that afternoon, Evan searched for a sand dollar that hadn’t already been smashed to smithereens. As I stepped over shattered shells, I worried I had given my suitor an impossible challenge. Maybe we’d leave the beach sad and empty-handed, which I’d interpret as a sign not to marry him. What can I say? I’m a superstitious girl, I’m the worst in the world.
After an hour of wandering through broken crab claws and washed up moon jellies, Evan kneeled before me, presenting a perfectly round shell, bleached by the sun and stamped in the center with its signature sea-flower.
Now we joke that the sand dollar is my dowry, which makes me laugh until I remember all the reasons why I don’t want to get married—nerves, divorce, patriarchy—and I deny that we are engaged. But then Evan says to me, “You are my sea wench,” and I think maybe I will marry him after all. Or at least, I’ll throw a party.
The wedding dress is already taken care of. It’s the most exquisite number in my closet: a 1990s Pamela Dennis floor-length gown I bought from a vintage shop. Simple and sleek, with velvety diagonal pleats that wave across the fabric like ripple marks in sandstone. The song would have to match the dress: something elegant and timeless and devastating.
my beautiful wife walked down the aisle to this masterpiece 😍 ❤
I used to play this on repeat and cry for hours when I was a teenager.
Same here
The world is a sadder place with no Des’ree in the charts! Please come back 😢
In 1995, Des’ree is terrified to write the love theme for Baz Luhrmann’s upcoming film, Romeo + Juliet. It seems like an impossible task: to create the saddest love song of the 1990s, inspired by one of the saddest plays of the 1590s. Des’ree is terrified to write something bad, terrified to let Luhrmann (and Shakespeare) down. Terror is a familiar feeling for the British singer, who suffers from a fear of flying as well as chronic stage fright. “Even though the desire [to sing] was there,” she says in an interview, “it terrified me to do it. And still, now, I’m paralyzed with nerves when I have to go on stage.”
Despite her terror, Des’ree dusts off her Shakespeare and rereads the play. She writes not one but two songs: “Sword of Love,” which pulls more imagery from the text, and “I’m Kissing You.” The director cuts “Sword of Love”—it’s too saccharine, a critique Des’ree may have feared. But “I’m Kissing You” is so hauntingly beautiful that Luhrmann asks Des’ree to perform the song in his film.
In her twelve-second cameo as “Diva,” she appears on stage wearing a sleek white crochet dress, performing at the Capulets’ masquerade party. In a close-up shot, her braids are pulled away from her face, clipped to side by lavender roses. Instead of looking directly into the crowd, she fixes her gaze on the back of the ballroom. The piano is the only instrument that accompanies her deep contralto. All the partygoers go silent, listening to a voice that clearly belongs to a virtuoso singer.
Following the release of Romeo + Juliet, an Irish Times interviewer asks Des’ree if she kissed “heart throb” Leonardo DiCaprio on set. Des’ree laughs and says, “I haven’t kissed him,” adding that no, he was not the muse behind the song.
this song MADE that movie.
used this at my wedding....
Me too. I messed that up and can barely Listen to this.
2026 anyone
The first time I heard Des’ree sing “I’m Kissing You,” I was five years old. I wasn’t supposed to be watching Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 rendition of Romeo + Juliet with its PG-13 rating, but then again, neither was my eleven-year-old sister Erica. One of the small glories of the nineties was that our parents didn’t care too much about what we watched on TV. By age four, I had already been traumatized by Starship Troopers. At least Romeo + Juliet would educate us in Shakespeare, Mom reasoned.
Erica was less interested in Shakespeare and more interested in Leonardo DiCaprio. Sometimes I’d sneak into Erica’s room to study her Scholastic magazine, “Lovin’ Leo: Your Leonardo DiCaprio Keepsake Scrapbook,” which she kept on her bedside table like a Bible. The cover was a closeup of Leo’s young face, squinting and looking beyond his overgrown blond bangs. Inside its pages were glamour shots of Leo covered in smoochy red lip prints. Leonardo, Romeo… What’s in a name? They were really one and the same.
Erica sat criss-cross applesauce before the television. She tossed the Romeo + Juliet VHS sleeve to the side and pushed the tape into the machine. The plastic door flapped like a curtain. As the movie began, I turned the sleeve over in my hands and stared at the young couple on the cover, framed by an aquatic jungle of coral and seaweed and tropical fish.
Romance, I’d soon realize, was not red-and-pink but aquarium blue.
this scene will always give me chills. it’s just so purely romantic. my god
I’ll take this song and love at first sight scene… Any day over Titanic movie
So dreamyyyy wtf...
Let me set the scene: Romeo, dressed like a medieval knight, wanders away from the masquerade party, away from the Diva’s performance, and into the bathroom, where he submerges his face in water. He’s trying to come down from a bad ecstasy trip. In the mirror, he notices a massive aquarium wall separating the girls’ powder room from the boys’ room. Romeo drifts towards the “submarine beauty,” as Luhrmann puts it in his script. Surely looking at fish will help.
From the ballroom, the Diva’s voice echoes: Pride can stand a thousand trials / the strong will never fall / but watching stars without you / my soul cried… Romeo bends down and looks through the aquarium glass. Butterflyfish float by. Then, from the other side, someone looks back.
At first, all Romeo sees of Juliet is her eye, framed between blue coral like a Victorian “lover’s eye” portrait. Juliet, dressed like an angel, leaps up. The young strangers look at one another. Romeo doesn’t break eye contact; Juliet looks away, then back. Pressing his nose against the glass, Romeo puckers his lips into a kiss, making Juliet laugh until she’s pulled away by the Nurse. The Diva cries: Oh, oh, the aching…
“Did my heart love till now?” says Romeo, watching Juliet from afar. “Forswear it, sight! For I never saw true beauty till this night.”
Imagine what this scene does to an eleven-year-old girl and her little sister. I’ll tell you: Erica leaned forward, mouth agape, and pressed the “rewind” button. Suddenly we were enraptured by a film that so far, was kind of boring. We didn’t pay much attention to the beginning, all gunfights and family drama. Finally, here was the romance, the poetry, the promise of that blue movie cover. Like my sister, I wanted Leo, the fish tank, the angel costume, but most of all, I wanted the song.
I want Leo to look at me how he looked at the fishes
all those fish are dead now
Those fish are alive in mind when we watch this
Throughout my teenage years, Romeo + Juliet remained my romantic blueprint, the reason why I snuck boys into our swimming pool late at night in the hope of making out underwater (which, I learned, was not as hot as it looked). Still, I’d hold my breath with the song in mind, fantasizing about love and fate.
For the first time in years, I rewatched Romeo + Juliet. Now that I’m thirty-one, I thought I’d be annoyed by Luhrmann’s frenetic pace. I thought the Hawaiian shirts paired with Shakespearean English would feel gimmicky. I thought maybe I’d judge Romeo and Juliet as stupid, horny teenagers. They get a lot of flak for being stupid, but I don’t think that’s the point of Shakespeare’s play, even though a certain type of English major loves to bludgeon this point to death. It’s NOT a romance, it’s a tragedy! they say, as if both can’t be true.
Des’ree understood the assignment; she understood that Romeo and Juliet were the products of a dumb, violent culture; she understood that Shakespeare’s play was about the cruelty of feuding families and the corruption of young love, impulsive as it may be. Des’ree knew the song had to be elegant and timeless and devastating.
By the end of the film, tears were rolling down my cheeks. Maybe it’s that damn song, or maybe it’s the way Claire Danes looks at her Romeo as he dies… it just gets me.
Erica doesn’t hesitate when I urge her to rewatch Romeo + Juliet; a day later, she texts me: “So many of my adolescent obsessions don’t hold up over time, but that movie was fucking brilliant. Leo is fucking beautiful too I get why I loved him.”
“Too bad we’re both too old for him now,” I text back.
A sweet forehead kiss
This sh*t hurts GODDAMN!!
Out of all the songs in this year’s essay tournament, “I’m Kissing You” sounds the most like crying. When Des’ree sings, “Oh, oh the aching,” she cradles that last note, lets it cry. She’s not quite sobbing, not quite wailing. Her soft, low vibrato never loses control, though it sounds like she could unravel at any moment. The song evokes the early stage of a good cry, the part when the throat tightens, when language begins to crumble and quiver.
Music critic Jim Farber describes Des’ree’s voice as “indigo”—a color that is rich like purple, but not without blueness. Evan thinks the song sounds like a dirge. An online commentator compares the song to an operatic aria, defined by The Metropolitan Opera as “a self-contained piece for solo voice, usually accompanied by orchestra. In opera, arias mostly appear during a pause in dramatic action when a character is reflecting on their emotions.” I wouldn’t be surprised if Des’ree and Luhrmann know their opera terminology (unlike me) and had hoped to capture the mood of an aria. After all, “I’m Kissing You” is the dramatic pause of Romeo + Juliet, a movie that is so fast paced for the first quarter that it’s dizzying. Love at first sight causes time to slow down; it insists upon a dramatic pause, a long exhale.
In 1997, music critic Ann Powers wrote that Des’ree “overdoes the melodrama” on the track, but I disagree. “I’m Kissing You” never struck me as melodramatic. Des’ree’s emotions don’t seem forced or over the top. There’s a rawness and authenticity in her voice, anchored in real longing. The most melodramatic part is halfway through the song when she stops singing and the string instruments swell to a crescendo. Des’ree doesn’t even need those strings to tug at your heart; her voice is a lasso all on its own.
Besides, you know who is melodramatic? Red Hot Chili Peppers. The Goo Goo Dolls. Guns N’ Roses. Plenty of male musicians who aren’t often labeled as melodramatic (Mick Jagger, anyone?). Don’t even get me started on Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On.” Even Kate Winslet said that song makes her want to “throw up.”
I’m probably digging myself a grave here. I know “I’m Kissing You” is up against some big names. Hear me out: Des’ree is so underrated, so quintessentially 90s. It’s almost as if she exists only within that era, though of course that isn’t true. Her last album A Love Story was released in 2019. Otherwise, she’s been absent from the spotlight. There’s no public information available about her whereabouts or marital status or upcoming projects. All I know is that during her hiatus, Des’ree enrolled in art and pottery classes in London. I wish I could tell you more but let us honor the mystery of Des’ree.
If you’re still unconvinced, then watch her live performance of “I’m Kissing You” from 1996. Even through the static and poor video quality, Des’ree stuns. It’s her stage, her aria, and her mic is on, meaning she sure as hell isn’t lip syncing, even though her voice sounds identical to the recorded track.
And let’s make a little commotion for Des’ree’s whole look: she dons a black lace dress, and painted across her décolletage is a yellow sunburst with rays reaching out in all directions. When she steps into the spotlight, the sunburst seems to glow from within, as if her lungs are lanterns.
I don’t think I even blinked watching her. Wow
prince would say "my mic is ON". Desree not serving a plate, she serving the entire buffet!
Why ain’t nobody STAND to clap?! Give this woman a round of applause now please
I want her to sing this at my wedding
In 2016, Des’ree tells the Guardian, “People tell me all the time that they walked up the aisle to it.” I believe her. In the comments section of the music video, everyone is crying and getting married to “I’m Kissing You.” It’s comical how people respond as if the song is a Rorschach test. Some see marriage, some see wreckage. In one thread, a debate breaks out:
I walked down the aisle to this song. It's been over 21 years and I'm still with my husband.
This song is about lost love though.
You think so? I think it’s about enduring love.
She literally says, “Watching stars without you… My soul cries.”
Valid point. She also says, Heaving heart is full of pain and Where are you now. But there’s a glimmer of hope when the Diva sings, I’m Kissing You—I am kissing you, not was kissing you. The present tense suggests that maybe, love is not lost.
I wonder how many brides have walked down the aisle to the song. Judging by the YouTube comments, thousands! I wonder how many went with Des’ree’s version, how many went with the instrumental, how many went with Beyonce’s godforsaken cover titled “Still In Love (Kissing You).” Beyonce changes Des’ree’s lyrics, adds embellishments to the original song as though she’s playing a game of Exquisite Corpse. Maybe it’s the butchered lyrics that annoy me, or maybe it’s the music video. Sure, Beyonce looks gorgeous frolicking around the beach and smiling, but this is a sad song. Her cover erases all the aching, all the sadness, all that gorgeous blueness. The cover certainly didn’t impress Des’ree, who sued Beyonce for copyright infringement in 2007.
“I’m Kissing You” is nothing without its sadness. But is it too sad for a wedding song? Would I walk down the aisle to Oh, oh, the aching…?
On an online forum called “Bridal Walk Song” from 2021, a bride-to-be named Jasmine writes: I’ve been thinking about walking down to I’m Kissing You (Romeo & Juliet) by Des’ree […] now I’m wondering if it’s too sad.
Michelle writes, If you love the song then use it.
Naomi replies, I was thinking of that song too... do it.
I’m with Michelle and Naomi. Do it, I want to chime in, even if it’s sad. Because weddings are kind of tragic. You are vowing until death (or divorce) do you part. That line—originally “till death us depart” from the Book of Common Prayer—has got to be the saddest, heaviest part of the wedding liturgy. Some couples soften the line, promise to stay together for eternity. It’s a nice sentiment, but the realist in me objects, even likes the drama of “Till death do us part”—an acknowledgement that lifelong love comes to an earthly end.
Maybe weddings aren’t happy endings like the ones Shakespeare wrote in his comedies. If we’re lucky, weddings are joyful beginnings. I mean “joyful” in that Zadie Smith way, who described joy as “that strange admixture of terror, pain, and delight,” and what are weddings if not a strange admixture of terror, pain, and delight? Terror at the realization that your marriage could end in heartache. Pain because maybe loved ones are missing in attendance, pain because it hurts to think about losing your beloved. And delight because, well, there’s kissing, rice throwing, champagne drinking, hopefully some karaoke singing, dancing…
Months after Jasmine’s initial post, she provides an update. Did she or didn’t she walk down the aisle to the saddest ballad of the 1990s?
Yes!! I did and it was perfect. No regrets.
The chokehold this song had on millennials ❤️🔥
“had”???? I’m still not over this song
Funny enough, Juliet does not walk down the aisle to “I’m Kissing You,” even though the song plays when the star-crossed lovers first meet, when they make out underwater, and when they have sex for the first time. But as a wedding song? Too sad, even for Romeo and Juliet.
Instead, another song fills the candle-lit church where they elope: the young Quindon Tarver’s choral cover of Rozalla’s “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good).” Tarver is another standout musician in the film. His scenes as a choir boy still raise goosebumps. Luhrmann had been searching for a “young Stevie Wonder” and found Tarver, a twelve-year-old Texan boy who “sounded much more like Aretha Franklin.” I remember stealing Erica’s Romeo + Juliet soundtrack on CD and religiously playing Tarver’s cover of “When Doves Cry” on my yellow boombox. I didn’t understand how such an otherworldly voice could emerge from such a young soul. I’d always wondered what happened to him and was incredibly sad to learn that Tarver died in a car accident in 2021. He was thirty-eight years old.
Twenty years after the release of Romeo + Juliet, Tarver gives an interview to ABC Australia for their segment on the “Young Hearts Run Free Festival,” a Romeo + Juliet celebration in Sydney, Australia. Tarver would perform there for the film’s twentieth anniversary, singing to a crowd of fans in masquerade masks.
“Has a lot changed for you?” the interviewer asks. It’s a silly question. Of course life has changed since 1996.
“Um, yeah,” Tarver says, speaking softly. “I’ve grown of course. I’m now a man. I’ve got vitiligo,” he says with a laugh, pointing at the light streak around his eye. “And I’ve matured. And my voice has matured. I’ve overcome a lot.” At the time of Romeo + Juliet, Tarver was sexually abused within the music industry, which caused him to stop singing for a long period of time. “I didn’t tell anyone until I was twenty-seven-years old. What was supposed to be my dream, what was supposed to make me feel happy actually destroyed me.”
“Finding myself again, I became able to sing again. I found my passion back,” Tarver says. “I’m free now. Everybody’s free! I’m free.”
38 is too young
Why can't we keep anything beautiful?
Before our road trip to Seaside, I’d never seen a living sand dollar. I didn’t even realize that sand dollars are living breathing animals. I’d only ever seen their white exoskeletons washed ashore, but living sand dollars are actually purplish in hue. Their bodies are covered in millions of fuzzy spines called cilia that fall off once they die. Cilia is a sign of life; never remove a sand dollar from a beach if it still has its velvety hair, which allow the creatures to move freely across the seafloor, nuzzle into the sand, and guide phytoplankton into their tiny mouths. Aristotle compared the sea urchins’ feracious, five-part jaw to the horn lantern, which also had five parts and met at a single, domelike roof. When the sand dollar is hungry or maybe feels like singing to the mermaids, its jaw unhinges, lets some light inside.
During his quest, Evan stumbled upon four living sand dollars clustered together in a small constellation. Up close, their spines swayed in all directions. I told Evan they didn’t count towards my challenge because they were still alive. Eventually, the tide rose and swept their bodies back into the ocean.
When Evan finally kneeled before me and presented the dead sand dollar, also called a “test,” I stood there, happy and stunned. This was better than an engagement ring. I took the test in my hand, felt its smooth edges, traced the flower-engraving with my finger. Evan and I kissed. We left the beach feeling good.
During the car ride home, Evan and I giggled about our ‘engagement.’ As I held the sand dollar, I noticed a rattling inside. I held the test to my ear, shook it from side to side as if it were a rain stick, trying to figure out what was stuck inside. Sand? Sea glass? Ocean debris?
Evan drove over a bump, and I lost my grip. The sand dollar slipped from my hand and fell to the car floor, where it cracked open like a piece of pottery. From its insides spilled five white teeth, shaped like doves.
Emily Podwoiski has been K-I-S-S-I-N-G (and crying) since 1994. Read more on her Substack, Valentine Girls.