After releasing the urban-pop single “Claim Me” and the early 2010s-inspired “Breakup Honeymoon,” the BBC-introduced singer-songwriter Jasi Bella is back with “Rosaline,” a new song that immerses the listener in the Romeo and Juliet story—but not in the way we usually think of it.
The upbeat pop song showcases Bella’s storytelling talent at its finest while giving the well-known Shakespearean story a completely new perspective—Rosaline’s perspective—in the process.
The song takes us on a voyage through Rosaline’s chronology alongside the star-crossed lovers and is rife with Shakespearean allusions. The Swedish singer-songwriter assumes the role of this ‘lost’ heroine as she reflects on Romeo forsaking his first love in order to pursue Juliet, her younger cousin.
As someone who spent her childhood reading Romeo & Juliet nonstop, Bella muses, “I never thought I’d end up writing a song in which I tear down Romeo’s character, but here we are.”
Rosaline was the reason he crashed the Capulet party, but he promptly forgot about her when he ran across Juliet that night.
Rosaline says, “I would never have let you die” if Romeo had chosen her, turning the initially somber play-by-play into a humorous one.
While singing along to the literal yet brilliant lyric, “I was your first, she was your poison,” the listener will be left questioning our history’s most well-known love story.
In the discography of the up-and-coming singer, it completes a great trilogy of radio hits with another infectious earworm.
Stream below.
