I Wish You Roses

Album: Red Moon In Venus (2023)
Charted: 81
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Songfacts®:

  • Roses are often associated with love and affection. Here, Kali Uchis bids a fond farewell to someone departing from her life.

    Ooh, never thought I would be without you
    I wish you love, I wish you well
    I wish you roses while you can still smell 'em


    Uchis didn't expect to lose this person, but she has no hard feelings.
  • Though the wording in "I Wish You Roses" implies Uchis is addressing a former romantic partner, the singer said it applies to various types of relationships. "This song is about being able to release people with love," Uchis explained. "It could be a friend, a lover, or someone else, but the point is to celebrate releasing people from your life without being resentful or bitter."
  • When Uchis was a child, she used to listen to the Latin soul musician Joe Bataan's 1972 song "I Wish You Love Part. 1," which served as inspiration for "I Wish You Roses."

    "Since I was little," Uchis told Apple Music's Zane Lowe, "I always thought it was such a beautiful thing because we hear so many songs about that, the bitterness or the anger or the feeling of wanting revenge or the feeling of wishing things had worked out and not having a resentful attachment to those feelings."
  • Throughout most of "I Wish you Roses," Uchis portrays herself as being the bigger person after the breakup, but she ends the song by hinting at some resentment.

    You're gonna want me back
    You're gonna want me bad
    You're gonna...
    You know we can't do that


    Uchis is confident the person will eventually come back to her, but she has decided not to let her back into her life.
  • Uchis co-wrote the atmospheric slow jam with the song's producers Josh Crocker and Dylan "Sir Dylan" Wiggins. The UK-based producer, writer and mix engineer Josh Crocker worked on five tracks on Uchis ' 2020 Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios) album, including "La Luna Enamorada" and her SZA collaboration, "Fue Mejor."

    Sir Dylan's resumé also includes tracks by Solange ("Mad"), Calvin Harris ("Over Now") and SZA ("I Hate U").
  • Uchis first teased on the song on social media in November 2022 before releasing it as the first single from Red Moon In Venus on January 19, 2023.
  • Director Cho Gi-Seok filled the song's music video with loads of floral-themed imagery. Filmed in South Korea, it includes a re-creation of one of the most iconic scenes from the 1999 film American Beauty when Uchis is covered in rose petals.

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