As an avid reader and writer, the one aspect I find immediately engaging in "A Proper Polish Welcome" is how fluidly its lyrics vacillate between realism and fantasy, leaving you unsure if the song's speaker is describing an actual or desired experience. Is it a myth of seduction at the hands of an alluring but unattainable sea nymph? A declaration of sexual longing from one woman to another? An imagined scene from the mind of a woman too reticent to forge a relationship in real life?

Or is it, somehow, all of these things at once? The nuance in Mackenzie Scott's deceptively simple use of language allows the song to potentially carry all of these meanings. This complexity is apparent from the first verse, which immediately establishes the perspective of a lonely, heartsick speaker pining for a past lover through the harsh winter of her absence.

Oh, January, keep a secret for me.

Only Poseidon knows what I've seen.

If you ask me, she was never there.

Beata, how is it I carry you everywhere?

The evocative sensuality of the lyrics carries over into Scott's hushed, aching vocal delivery. The emotion is palpable from the first note, indicative of a white-hot passion simmering, barely contained, beneath the surface. This is complemented by the instrumentation, initially composed only of sparse, reverb-drenched electric guitar that somehow calls up images of waves crashing against a barren shore. Guitar is joined by percussion as the chorus arrives, creating a dark and lusty rhythmic backbone that kicks the song into full gear.

Heavy hands, she moved slowly, steadily.

Pale legs straddling the sea.

Aboard a floating savior, what does language mean?

It was a proper Polish welcome.

Here, the narrator hands herself over to her desire entirely, her lover taking form through the overtly sexual imagery as an intimidating siren. Within this fantasy, all sense of logic disappears ("What does language mean?") in favor of pure physical ecstasy. Scott's vocals grow more frenzied, as though delivered through gritted teeth, her control crumbling to dust around her. Even if it's never made clear what actually constitutes "a proper Polish welcome," it's easy enough to read between the lines.

A shift of the table, a slip of the tongue,

silence and then a muffled "Oh my God."

I was the first to laugh; she followed suit.

Rocking and holy, we came two by two.

The abstraction of the first verse is replaced by realism in the second. Where the relationship was formerly romanticized and mythologized, it is now presented in all of its minute and awkward detail, matched by Scott's increasingly raw delivery. Rather than presenting some unattainable sexual ideal, this verse celebrates the beauty of uncertainty and those small fumbled moments that inevitably occur, giving the song an added layer of relatability.

I wish I was the sea.

I wish I was the sea.

She was straddling the sea.

I wish I was the sea.

Finally, the instrumentation falls away, only to slowly rebuild itself beneath Scott's keening wail, all of her longing laid bare as she repeats her all-consuming want like a desperate incantation, a spiritual willing of her lover back to her side. Then the chorus arrives once more, intensified by all that has come before, yet it goes out with a whimper rather than a bang. This is an interesting choice, reminding the listener that the fantasy can't persist forever and reality must creep back in eventually. Still, the memory of it, delectable, remains, and, for the listener anyway, is luckily re-accessible at any time through a click of the "back" or "repeat" button.