I had this week’s song ready to go.
Then, 24 hours ago, I was listening to an interview with the songwriter who wrote it. She and the hosts were just gushing over this other songwriter named dodie, and how fantastic dodie was. They were so enthusiastic, so completely in agreement about dodie’s mastery as a songwriter, that I found myself agreeing with them, despite (shamefully) having never heard of this dodie person.
A good portion of the 24 hours since then have been spent listening to as many of dodie’s songs as possible, trying to make the very difficult decision of which one to share with you today.
So it is with great excitement – and with apologies to our originally scheduled musician, who we’ll have to hear from next week – that I recommend to you the music of singer/songwriter/hypersuccessful YouTuber Dorothy Clark, aka dodie.
Their 2021 LP Build A Problem is excellent, recorded with an ASMR-like closeness that makes it perfect headphone listening. But while there’s plenty of beauty on that release, no individual song hits quite as hard as this one, from the 2017 EP You.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. While most of dodie’s music includes a variety of instruments, this one rests on a single note on the piano; a thread that reminds me of the Camille track from week 123.
2. Vocally, dodie isn’t one for belting it out. Often, she barely sings above a whisper, but everything is mic’d so tightly that belting isn’t necessary for it to feel powerful. Those little “hm-hmms” at 1:31 are like a gentle but strong hand on the shoulder from a friend who knows what you’re going through.
3. It’s such a personal, one-friend-to-another type of song that the listener doesn’t expect it to open up the way it does at 2:45. That opening up coaxes you into believing that the “secret” in the song’s title is true; things will in fact get better.
Recommended listening activity:
Changing your plans.