This EP was never meant to exist. I wrote four of the five songs before I even decided to make music my career. My producer and I met through a random connection, and were initially planning to make an album. My three previous singles, “Bass Line,” “Ecstasy,” and “Numbered Days” were meant to join these five songs to be an eight song album. That was the plan until days before I submitted the EP to distribution.
There was something about those eight songs together that wasn’t sitting right for me. I loved them all individually but no matter how I ordered them, something wasn’t quite right. The way I jump genres paired with the way we explored production styles made it so the songs were not sonically cohesive enough for me to feel good about a debut album. So, I decided to cut the first three singles from the project and all of the sudden, it worked. What I didn’t realize was that the five unreleased songs were completely cohesive both sonically and thematically. They all had one thing in common: something in the context of the song was slightly out of reach.
‘Slightly out of reach’ is a lyric from the first track “The Photo On Your Desk.” In that song, I am reaching for a connection with my partner I feel is lacking - or being blocked by something else (his ex). I started thinking about all of the other things in my life that felt slightly out of reach. The second track, “Wish I Believed You” is about my struggle with self esteem and trusting that someone could have feelings for me. My ability to trust someone else is slightly out of reach.
The next two tracks “Women Always Know,” and “Doing Life With Me” are sister songs written twenty minutes apart. The two songs are about my relationship with my partner and how the future was so uncertain but I wanted him to hold on a little longer and keep trying. In both songs, the security in my relationship is slightly out of reach.
The fifth and final track is different. The previous four are either about my relationship or my relationship to relationships in general. While the title, “Summer in Love'' may be misleading, the song is about feeling stuck in a job you hate and wishing things were better - and knowing they could be. I spent that summer working a bartending job and living with my grandparents and boyfriend, so the title comes from the silver lining of at least having someone to be miserable with. Happiness and success are slightly out of reach.
In the coming weeks, I will release essays delving into the meaning of each song on the tracklist, but until then, enjoy Slightly Out Of Reach.
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