Life comes with a LOT of emotions.
Expressing them can sometimes feel all but impossible but that’s where we are lucky to be gifted with talented music artists who ponder and feel and articulate the deepest feelings of the human heart and pair it with music resonant it’s hard not to feel like someone has reached into your soul and set it to music.
These five songs, which talk of love and connection and sadly, its sundering, are beautiful exemplars of putting the human heart to music and they will move you with their honesty, their melodies and their commitment to expressing what it means to be human and alive and feeling …
“Orange Juice” by Noah Kahan
There’s an exquisitely empathetic beauty to Noah Kahan’s “Orange Juice”.
It infuses every last word and note in the gently affecting song by the American singer-songwriter who brings togethers folk and pop to arrestingly impacting effect.
The song is real heart-on-the-sleeve stuff, full of what Billboard calls the artist’s “sucker-punch-to-the-heart lyrical style”, all delivered by a voice that feels like it’s great all the emotions of the world within.
Lifted from his most recent album Stick Season which is out now, “Orange Juice” is inspired in part by Kahan’s experience with alcoholism and the lack of connection it create and how sobriety can restore bonds once broken to much appreciated affect after years of isolation and loss.
“You Just Didn’t Like Me That Much” by Leanna Firestone
There’s so much emotional honesty about how to respond to the end of a relationship in “You Just Didn’t Like Me That Much” by Nashville-based singer-songwriter Leanna Firestone that it makes you realise how often we go down the pointlessly destructive route of demonising the other person when in fact maybe no one’s to blame and it’s just one of those things.
The insightfulness in this musically light and lyriocally heavy song is inspiring because it acknowledges that though we want a scapegoat when things go wrong, and we want to use phrases like “the one that got away” and “my soulmate” but the truth is, sometimes we just let ourselves fall for people who don’t like us that much.
No ne’s evil, no one’s terrible; it’s just two people making what in retrospect is a decision to be in a relationship which really shouldn’t have existed at all.
But hey good hindsight and all that, right? The truth is, we make mistakes, we realise they were mistakes and we move on and listening to this brilliantly, groundedly heartfelt artist talk about a break-up in those terms, especially with a melody this insistently delightful and warm, is good for the soul.
“Weightless” by Arlo Parks
Hailing from Britain and with a gift for beautiful music into which she pours a universe of emotions, Arlo Parks is a music artist who isn’t afraid to open her heart and live it out in her songs.
Proof positive is “Weightless” from forthcoming album My Soft Machine, a track which Women In Pop describes as existing “in a more electronic pop soundscape, with a shuffling beat underpinning Parks’ unique and emotive vocals and gorgeous melodies” which possesses a “middle eight breakdown [which] brings elements of rap and hip hop into the track before it hits you with the full force of its lush, warm chorus again.”
Infused with the frustrating pain of loving someone deeply only to have them give you only the most passing and scant of affection, “Weightless” is the perfect marriage of lo-fi music (though with a definitely emotively intense edge and some real beauty) and intensely rich lyrics.
It is pop with heart, emotion and real thoughtfulness, with Parks laying her heart on the line in such a vulnerable way that it deeply affects you in some truly heartrending ways.
“Where do we go now?” by Gracie Abrams
The daughter of Hollywood royalty – dad is film director J. J. Abrams and her mum is Katie McGrath, a film and TV producer – Gracie Abrams has loved music since she was little girl.
She has turned that nascent love of words and music into a pop career that encompasses richly-resonant melodies, emotionally-laden vocals and lyrics that cut right through to the heart of the matter.
Case in point is “Where do we go now?”, which features the stunningly clever lyric “mental fire alarm” which captures what an romantic epiphany can feel like – a track which sees the singer baring her heart and soul and asking the recipient of all that honesty “where next?”
It’s brave being this honest, especially when it could mean the end of something special that you’ve admittedly been faking involvement with, and the song’s emotional impact is bolstered by a clip by Gia Coppola that captures the nuance and intimacy of the song perfectly.
Dial Two Seven by Låpsley
While “Dial Two Seven” by Låpsley dates from last year, it’s one of those evergreen songs that captures your heart and soul in almost equal measure.
The first calling card from her third album Cautionary Tales Of Youth, the song is one of those gorgeously loping slices of melodically beguiling pop that, aided by the artist’s ethereally emotive vocals, delivers a power punch of chilled musicality.
It’s a song that captures a specific place and time, and with it all the attendant emotions, as the artist explains to The Line of Best Fit.
“[The single aims] “to celebrate those experiences I had in South Africa over lockdown. It came together so quickly with one of my favourite producers in the city, Greg Abrahams, collaborating with Omri Dahan and Mikaela Faye. I wanted to translate the adventures, hedonism and love that blossomed between myself and my South African friendship group.”
NEW ABBA LYRIC VIDEO LANDS FOR VALENTINE’S DAY!
One of ABBA’s biggest singles, “Mamma Mia” was released as a single in Australia initially in August 1975, at the urging of the local record company, RCA, and the agreement of the band’s manager, Stig Anderson (Polar Music had refused the request), a wise move with the song going to occupy the number one chart position for 10 impressive weeks.
Widely considered one of ABBA’s best songs, it’s the perfect Valentine’s Day musical accompaniment …