Kiss from a Rose is a 1994 ballad written and recorded by British artist Seal. The record earned critical acclaim at the 1996 Grammy Awards and stood out from its contemporaries in its tuning, mode, harmony, and lyrical metaphor. Since its release, listeners have posited numerous theories for the song's narrative, including death, addiction, toxic relationships, and more. Further muddying a clear interpretation is Seal's own ambiguous commentary on the song. The synthesis of these components has cultivated a fascination with the song in Western pop culture for over three decades. This presentation explores one possible narrative of Kiss from a Rose by analyzing how the song's harmonic and lyrical interplay depict the first five stages of addiction.

Addiction is the compulsive use of a substance despite clinically significant impairments to one's life and progresses in six stages: initial use, misuse, tolerance, dependence, addiction, and relapse. Relapse is not believed to be represented in this song. The harmonic skeleton of Kiss from a Rose moves primarily between two modes, G Aeolian and G Mixolydian and centers around the harmonic loop I-bVI-bVII-I. This unstable modality and harmonic loop are developed and altered throughout the piece to musically support and mirror imagery created by the lyrics. This presentation aims to analyze how lyrics and harmony work together to chronologically narrativize the stages of addiction and further contextualize why Kiss from a Rose has remained significant in the corpus of pop music for over three decades.