Recommended Tracks: “Bodybag,” “Violet Blue,” “Somewhere”
Artists You Might Like: Bea Miller, FLETCHER, Olivia O’Brien
Rage, sweetness, dancing and even sadness — indie pop singer-songwriter Charlotte Lawrence has embodied it all throughout her career, and on her debut album, Somewhere, the newly 25-year-old singer rewrites her deepest and darkest struggles by revisiting the past and welcoming the new ones yet to come. In an era so warped by changing times and life struggles, it’s hard to reconcile that everything’s going to be fine. That this, too, shall pass. Lawrence fights for herself, for others and the right to move on and heal on this 13-track debut.
The album opens with the emotionally chaotic and electric guitar-heavy title track, “Somewhere,” which builds into a heartbreaking guitar and pain. Lawrence deals with this disorienting hurt that comes with losing someone you love, maybe even before someone leaves you. We see Lawrence deal with dangerous coping mechanisms as she spirals, describing driving into oncoming traffic after drinking a couple of beers. In a plea for forgiveness, Lawrence showcases the fleeting beauty and heavy weight of pain that rests on her heart, singing, “I can see razor blades, pieces of sunlight hit your face.” The cry for clarity and closure isn’t over as she continues to try and make sense of the manipulation on “Us Three,” an indie-pop ballad that sees Lawrence realize she’s the other woman. Feeling almost destructive and suffocating in this tangled web of lies one built, she sings, “Tell me again that you never loved her / Try and explain why I’m not enough / Swear on my name that you’re gonna cut her / Off like a chain too tight around your throat.”
An album highlight and a devastatingly beautiful piano ballad, “Bodybag” cuts deep and hard. It represents the kind of pain you keep choosing — a toxic, emotional dependency that is marred by the beauty of Lawrence’s soaring vocals and delicate piano — just to feel close to someone who keeps causing you pain. She sets the tone in the first line, that drugs feel safer than love. It’s a dangerous, self-destructive pattern that follows Lawrence through much of the album as she treats love like an addiction. Not just a metaphor for death, it’s a complete emotional annihilation — a feeling of utter turmoil and the ultimate surrender (“Hold me through the heart attack / If it’s love, will you love me to the body bag?”).
The song, “I Don’t Wanna Dance,” begins with the gentle strumming of acoustic guitars layered with Lawrence’s sweet vocals, where the 25-year-old singer details how she has suppressed her emotions for so long. She sings, “I hold it all in / Try to keep it unspoken / Bite my lips ’til they’re broken,” feeling the need to present a facade that she hopes others won’t notice. The verse reveals how Lawrence has been concealing her true emotions. She maintained this facade in the hope that others would remain oblivious to her internal struggles. In a contrasting point of view, Lawrence is compassionate and emotionally resonant on “Better Than This,” where she shares how deeply she cares for someone and reaches out to someone struggling. “Can you find something better than this?” is both a plea and a challenge. Lawrence dives a bit deeper into this idea of disillusionment and betrayal on “Lola,” as she faces the idea of losing this idealistic view of someone she looked up to. This once-idealized figure is told like a letter — a goodbye letter — as she comes to terms with who they really are in this heartbreaking ballad that makes your heart sink.
But what about the other side of love? From a heartbreaking romance to an idealized version of someone you look up to fading, Lawrence now confronts the idea of an unrequited love on “Fear of Falling” and “Dog.” On “Fear of Falling,” Lawrence faces what it’s like to fall in love with someone you shouldn’t even love to begin with. She faces the ebb and flow, the secrecy and the never-ending repercussions of this kind of love — one doomed before it even begins. On the other hand, “Dog” sees Lawrence confront the frustration of loving someone who doesn’t feel the same. Ignoring the signs, we’ve all been there: left to love somebody more than they’re loved. She compares the relationship to a dog waiting by the window for its owner, just for her to be completely replaced and ripped away on “Morning.”
Any young individual has experienced personal insecurities. Whether it’s heightened by past experiences or by personal struggles, “Ballerina” sees Lawrence speak to a young girl, lost and hurting. She sings, “Ballerina, put the mascara on… Put out the fires, kill all your little lies.” She mentions same-sex relationships and emphasizes the kind of message many young people need but rarely believe in the moment — that they are enough as they are, and that the pain they feel now is not permanent.
The album’s final moments are dreamy and melancholic — an aching sense that flows through the entire project. Between haunting emotional dependency and toxic love on “Violet Blue” and a heavy weight of regret wrapped in the portrait of someone similar to one famously tied to tragic beauty and sorrow on “Ophelia,” Lawrence leaves the 13-track album, Somewhere, with a final confessional. Finally painting a picture of someone loved too late and lost too soon, Lawrence gives her final farewell to the person she used to be and the life she used to live.
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