If, somehow, Ren Gill has not been all over your TikTok feed in the last few weeks, and you haven’t seen him perform Hi Ren, now is the time.
But brace yourself. It is harrowing.
Hi Ren is not a song. It’s theatre. It’s art.
I am obsessed with it. It is a lot.
I am sin with no rhyme or reason
Shot in one take (on the fourth attempt), Hi Ren is a feat of disturbing, haunting magic. PhDs could be written on this song. PhDs should be written on this song, analysing its musicality, analysing the religious imagery, analysing the creative struggle, and analysing what it says about mental and physical health and resilience.
But this is not a PhD, so I’ll do my best with what I’ve got. And what I’ve got is training in classical music, a lifetime of mental health problems, and 30 years of physical health ones. Oh, and a lot of religion in there too.
Many songs have been written about all of the above. Few combine them so effectively, with such meaning, and with such a punch.
So Hi Ren spoke to me on every level.
How do people react to Hi Ren?
Reactions to this song tend to go kind of like this:
- Wow, nifty guitar
- Ooh I was not expecting that to be the vocals
- Oof, that rapping voice sounds evil
- That’s a different voice now… Ohhhhh he’s talking to himself
At which point, people start to understand what plays out, but they do so in their own way. They create their own story, hearing Ren’s voice and fitting the lyrics to their lives.
If they’re a creative, the inner battles around originality and authenticity speak to them. If they’re mentally unwell, they immediately recognise the cruel and needy voice versus the firm and “well” voice. If they’re religious, it increasingly blows their mind as the song progresses.
Lyrics and musicality in Hi Ren
I have stood in the flames that cremated my brain
And I didn’t once flinch or shake
Hi Ren’s lyrics are exceptionally insightful and provocative.
The artist has a phenomenal way of using his voice, his guitar, his physicality, and his surroundings, to capture people’s attention and ensure they don’t click away to the next thing before he’s finished.
The lyrics are a core element of this pull people feel when they watch it. Ren is poetic and he’s harsh. He’s blunt and he’s nuanced. He’s vulnerable and he’s strong. And all of this is rooted in the words he chooses so carefully and delivers so powerfully.
His rapping while playing classical guitar shouldn’t work, but it does. I can’t get close to doing justice to analysing the rap element of this song, but this “reaction” video breaks it down in a way that I found fascinating.
But my music is really connecting
And the people who find it, respect it
Ren’s artistry is evident, and his lyrics and presentation are incredibly clever. The song has callbacks throughout to previous themes, so it works as a complete piece when otherwise it could risk being fragmented and inconsistent.
His musical talent is also undeniable. He does things with that guitar that a guitar shouldn’t be able to do, and the lyrical themes are surprising throughout. Tunes, too, shouldn’t be able to do some of the things he does with them. But Ren pulls it off.
The fact that this soundtrack was crafted by one man with one guitar is beyond impressive. Ren has a phenomenal instinct for music.
Character switching in Hi Ren
You got to kill you if you wanna kill me
The way Ren switches between the characters in Hi Ren is remarkable. It’s not just that they face in different directions when they speak but they have different voice tones, different-style guitar accompaniment, different facial expressions.
The lights that flicker when the dark side is featured, and stop flickering when the more positive side is featured, add to the atmosphere of a bleak set.
The starkness of this set, as well as the lack of post-production cutting and the lack of supporting musicians, leaves Ren nowhere to hide. We see the whole story as he experiences it, from start to finish.
I repeat, this was all shot in one go. He performed it live, conjuring up characters and moods and feelings in his listeners.
The critical voice in Hi Ren
Oh, your music is thriving? Delusional guy
I have a relentlessly critical inner voice, and there are few portrayals of this phenomenon that convey the brutality of sharing a brain with somebody constantly lobbing abuse your way.
Ren manages this nuance beautifully. Whatever “light” Ren counters, “dark” Ren has a comeback for. It’s an argument we can never win. And as long as we spend all our energy fighting that fight, it keeps us from actually achieving things.
“Light” Ren tries to fight with his words and his determination. We see the losing battle he’s attempting take place in front of our eyes.
Religious imagery in Hi Ren
Face to face with the beast, I will rise from the east
And I’ll settle on the ocean floor
Please can a Biblical scholar write a paper about this song? My Catholic upbringing means the devil and gods imagery hits me hard, but I have no doubt that there are layers of Biblical significance way beyond my grasp of those books.
What we do learn is that the devil is not the only entity with multiple names. The devil isn’t the only immortal. But the other side of this coin, for Ren, is not god, it is hope.
But what is Hi Ren actually about?
It was never really a battle for me to win, it was an eternal dance
I cannot claim that my interpretation of this song is the definitive one. Nobody has the definitive interpretation – probably not even Ren; if viewers and listeners understand the song to mean something different to what he intended, are they wrong? Once an artist puts something out into the world, what if it’s what people take from it that creates the meaning, not what went into it?
You should be so lucky, having me inside you to guide you
I’m just one person, and my own interpretation of this song changes every time I watch it. My understanding of the “dark” character in particular veers wildly from “He’s pure evil” to “He’s actually being protective” to “Maybe he’s really scared”.
Are any of those true? Are all of them true? The more I rewatch, the less sure I am.
So cower at the man I’ve become, when I sing from the top of my lungs
Despite my conflicting and contradictory ways of understanding and identifying the angry, troubled character Ren portrays, I have no inconsistencies in my reaction to the final few verses of the song, and I feel the same reaction every time I watch this video: triumph.
But even that’s not simple.
It’s not Ren’s triumph over the darkness. It’s his triumph over the constant battles, the relentless fighting.
The dark is still there, and it’s just as threatening and menacing and intrusive. Ren is just no longer battling with it.
He’s not admitted defeat against evil, but he’s not victorious over it either.
He has triumphed over the fight itself.
To end the song, Ren leaves the final chord unresolved, musically. His story is not over.
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