2000 Gabrielle: Rise

With a backing track sampled directly from Bob Dylan's hardy perennial 'Knocking On Heaven's Door', 'Rise' is a more wistful, more soulful (with a small 's') spin on the 'I Will Survive' woman done wrong but will make good scenario. More wistful because at the back of all the "They said that time's a healer, and I'm better without you. It's gonna take time I know, but I'll get over you", Gabrielle can't resist a peak into the past she wants to leave behind with "Much time has passed between us, do you still think of me at all?", a heartstopping line in context that provides the blast that lifts 'Rise' to a level other than ordinary. Without it, there's a one dimensional flatness about its nagging ambience that Gabrielle's small 's' soul can't inflate with emotion enough to make me care all that much about her plight. And when half of that dimension itself comes from Dylan's own hummed motif then 'Rise' for the most part remains stubbornly earthbound.