“Atletico ( The Only One)” by Rae Morris

The term “atletico” is a way of saying athletic in some of the Romance languages of Europe, such as Spanish in Italian. Many of us who aren’t fluent with said tongues are still familiar with the titular term nonetheless, as Spain-based Atletico Madrid is one of the most famous football teams in the world. 

And that is also how Rae Morris came across the term, by watching Atletico Madrid engage in some Champions League football. Apparently she was doing so at the behest of her husband. And it’s like if you force someone to watch a sport that they’re not actually interested in, he or she is going to take their own understanding or what have you from said viewing. And what Rae derived from that experience is actually a fascination with the word atletico, thus deciding to entitle this track so.

So the implication behind the above explanation is that this song doesn’t have anything to do with athletics per se. Rather, it can be said that the titular term, in this context, is synonymous with vigor or energy. And what the narrative is based on is an aspect of Rae’s actual personality, i.e. her tendency to go to parties or clubs, see people she would like to socialize with yet being too chicken, if you will, to do so. And so it is with “Atletico”, though said person of interest in this case is someone the vocalist is romantically attracted to.

Storyline

So the storyline proceeds as so. In the first verse we find Morris chillin’ in a club or some type of dancehall venue. Then the addressee catches her eye, someone she becomes infatuated with due to his dance moves and overall ‘beauty’.

So it’s like being a modern woman and all, the idea of her approaching him is not out of the question. Indeed by the looks of things, that is the vocalist’s only option if she wants to initiate a relationship with the newfound apple of her eye – either that or call it night and go home feeling just as lonely and energetic as when she arrived. 

And unfortunately for the narrator, that is in fact the option she chooses. So that’s why in the chorus we find her ‘back on her own’, as in at home, filled with so much “atletico”, i.e. vigor. And it is in the second verse that she really drives home one of the thesis sentiments of this piece. There, we find Rae kicking herself for not approaching the addressee when she had the chance to do so. 

And frequent visitors of this platform would know that sometimes we do come across songs by male singers based on this selfsame type of scenario. But this may be the first time we’ve actually come across one of these songs by a female vocalist.

Thesis Sentiment of “Atletico”

But in terms of the real thesis sentiment of this piece, as driven home in the outro this is actually a case of love at first sight. The vocalist has indeed been smitten by a guy (i.e. “the only one” subtitle of this song) she apparently only crossed paths with once and may never meet again in her life. 

And, perhaps we can say that maybe it would have been better for her, even if she had gotten rejected, to have just approached him. And why? Because at the end of the day, it is as if just imagining she actually could have had him is driving the narrator crazy.

Rae Morris

Rae Morris is a singer from England that has put out a couple of studio albums, 2015’s Unguarded and 2018’s “Someone Out There”, to date. The first of those projects made it onto the top 10 of the UK Albums Chart. It also produced what appears to be Rae’s only two songs thus far to have made it onto the UK Singles Chart, those being:

• “Under the Shadows” 
• “Love Again”

“Atletico”

Meanwhile, “Atletico” was made public as the third single from “Someone Out There”, a product of Atlantic Records and Warner Records, on 22 November 2017.

Rae Morris wrote this song in conjunction with Benjamin Garrett. Benjamin is a professional musician better known as Fryars. He is not only one of Rae’s regular collaborators but also the songstress’s spouse. 

Additionally she and Fryars co-produced this track. The pair did so in conjunction with another musical duo called MyRiot.

The music video to this song was directed by Noel Paul. It was filmed in the city of New Orleans. According to Rae Morris, she found the aforementioned city thematically fitting due to its “infectious energy”.