Imogen Sharma

It is underrated. Van Gogh lifetime levels of underrated. Criminally so. 

The word is tossed around carelessly, but it’s not strong enough for how underappreciated this masterpiece is. The Trials of Van Occupanther and The Courage of Others are genre-transcending works of mastery that never got the attention they deserve. Time will surely tell.

Midlake Roscoe Meaning and Analysis

Very few songs have the scope, magnitude, breadth, and impact of Roscoe. It transports you back to a different time, a simpler time when “the village used to be all one really needs.” Taken out of context, those words feel somehow naive, but the song is far from rose-tinted nostalgia. Wisdom overflows in this four-and-a-half minute ode to life. It’s a funeral and christening, all at once marking the end of our old way of life and heralding in the modern age. Surely such an exquisite blend of traditional and contemporary could only be crafted by people dancing on the knife edge of digital and analogue?

Precision underpins every moment, and layered vocals conjure gentle, green-tinged imagery. I can listen to Roscoe over and over and find something new to be impressed with. Having first heard it around 2010, it became my favourite song of all time in 2025. I mean, I loved it before, but age has unlocked a deeper appreciation for its wistfully tragic themes. Caught up in a wave of overthinking, I might say the descriptions of our changing world, from natural to chemical – innocent to jaded – satisfied to unsatisfied – also reflects the journey we’re forced to go on as we age. 

It’s a track of contrasts from start to finish, feeling painstakingly engineered yet so stripped back and pastoral. There’s not a wasted note – not a single half beat that hasn’t earned its place. Every instrument pulls its weight. The piano is pretty and tame, lulling you into a false sense of familiarity as fuzzy guitars twang and wail in a haze of 70s inspiration. Psychedelic, proggy drums urge the song along, and the bass weaves like a country road across the track, with everything picking up pace in unison as industrialization takes hold of our once peaceful world. 

Ah, it’s so easy to imagine a simpler world as easier or more desirable. But the lyrics are stark in their depiction of that now-extinct agricultural society, and the laborious suffering our ancestors endured to get us to where we are now. “We have all we need.” Too much, if anything. 

The Definition of Quiet Genius

And there’s something so damn inspiring about Roscoe – Its richness and texture make me want to be a better writer. It’s the epitome of artistic vision, actualised. Each flourish and nuance is intentional and evocative, punctuating the urgency that permeates the song. It starts slow and stripped back, building speed and becoming more digitized until a culmination that feels ecstatic and terminal. Then there’s the piano/electric guitar riff that first rears its head at 1:33, and returns at 2:56. Those haunting notes spell out a funeral march, echoing as we run blindly from a toiling and tumultuous past toward an ominous future.

Every time I hear Roscoe, I yearn for more music with the same sound and depth… but then it wouldn’t be so special.

Authenticity spills from it, reflecting the rugged, ancient pursuit of unobtainable truth and its gradual replacement with the modern era of unattainable beauty. A future that shines in high gloss, with artifice weeping from every pore. 

Midlake: Roscoe Lyrics:

Stone cutters made them from stones
Chosen specially for you and I
Who will live inside
The mountaineers gathered timber
Piled high
In which to take along
Driving many miles, knowing they’d get here

When they got here, all exhausted
On the roof leaks they got started
And now when the rain comes
We can be thankful

Ooh ah ooh
When the mountaineers
Saw that everything fit
They were glad and so they took off

Thought we were due for
A change or two
Around this place
When they get back they’re all mixed up with no one to stay with

The village used to be all one really needs
Now it’s filled with hundreds and hundreds of
Chemicals that mostly surround you
You wish to flee but it’s not like you
So listen to me, listen to me

Oh, and when the morning comes
We will step outside
We will not find another man in sight
We like the newness, the newness of all
That has grown in our garden soaking for so long

Whenever I was a child I wondered what if my name
Had changed into something more productive like Roscoe
Been born in 1891
Waiting with my Aunt Roseline

Thought we were due for
A change or two
Around this place
When they get back they’re all mixed up with no one to stay with

1891
They roamed around and foraged
They made their house from cedars
They made their house from stones

Oh, they’re a little like you, and
They’re a little like me
We have all we need

Thought we were due for
A change or two
Around this place
This place
This place

When they get back they’re all mixed up with no one to stay with
When they get back they’re all mixed up with no one to stay with