Regrets, I've had a few. But then again, too few to mention… err, actually there's been quite a lot really. A shed load; a boat load in fact, and yes, some have been to do with relationships; literal screw-ups, you could say.
I thought we were friends - I thought I could trust you.
Break-ups - I don’t care if I never get any good at them. I think I secretly enjoy the pain. I have this personal torture chamber; a recovery room. I’ve been in there a lot over the years. It’s not a physical space. It’s a compartment inside my mind. It’s a place for the why’s and the wherefores to get weighed up. I’ve learned that I need to let them all go eventually. Some things are too heavy to carry around forever. They weigh down your hopes, your fears, your dreams. It’s better to make some kind of peace with your inadequacies. A lot of things are completely outside your control anyway.
But through it all, when there were doubts - I did it my way.
Sorry I Ever Fucked You, is like the break-up song that Adele might have written after a long night of red bull and painkillers. Of course, her label would never have let her put it out. But, deep down, it really is a very Adele sort of song - it’s a break-up song after all. Hell, It could be Adele singing it if it wasn’t so damn edgy. Gabrielle has the range of Adele, the tone of Adele, and the emotion - I’m sold!
It all starts quite diminutively: there’s a gentle strum on a telecaster, a little reverb, some reflections on the travails of train travel, geography, the ex-girlfriend. Then, a spot of reality brings in the drums…
Thinking of the holes in your underwear - and the mattress on the floor.
Right on the minute mark, and there’s a subtle change in the voice: a realisation expressed in Gabrielle’s phrasing that tells you this isn’t just another whiney-why-me song. There’s deep thought, and cleverness behind these words, and the result is quite affecting.
And at the end, the pièce de résistance. Gabrielle’s outré of an outtro turns everything around and she muses upon the possibility that the situation may actually be a consequence of her own lifestyle, her own life choices.
It’s not you. It’s me…
I've never been with a man in the state that I'm from
What does that have to say about how I fall in love
This is beginning to feel like it's more than coincidence, more than bad luck
Like a me problem, well fuck...
Gabrielle Marlena is a singer-songwriter based in Brooklyn, New York. In 2017 she drove 13,000 miles in 36 days, playing 25 shows in 21 different states. In my book, that would count for something - even if she wasn’t such a gifted singer, such a talented lyricist...
You can learn more about Gabrielle Marlena here:
About The Curator - Phil Shaw
The world is wrong about music…
and I want to change it’s mind
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings
Look on my playlists, ye mighty, and despair
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