Review: Marlene Larsen’s newest single ‘I Said I’m Fine’ embraces a nostalgically warm sound with lyrical poignance
Settling into 90’s inspired indie soft rock, the up-comer Marlene Larsen has coined a sound you can’t help but fall for immediately from first listen. On stage - along with her right hand woman Hélène Badouin - Marlene also puts on a performance that’s unforgettable, showing off her skillsets in all avenues and always doing it at 110%. Sharing her second single from her debut EP, Marlene boasts ‘I Said I’m Fine’ , one of five strong and bittersweet tracks that tie together many of her own experiences for others to relate along with.
Resting at four and a half minutes in length, ‘I Said I’m Fine’ is a release that urges you to curl up and listen deeply, following along with Marlene’s carefully crafted instrumental and lyrical journey that’s deeply intertwined. Nostalgically led by warm steady beats and deep bass twangs, the soundscape of ‘I Said I’m Fine’ is immediately established to be easy-going and soft, somewhere between a little somber but comforting nonetheless. As the pre-chorus changes up the tone a little, the instrumentals fade into intermittent beats and bright guitar strums, embodying more of a vibrant momentary lapse whilst being intimate all at once. The chorus falls back into the track’s bedding of melancholia, resuming steady beats and scratchier bass twangs, mesmerising you on the journey that plays out. All the while things play out, Marlene’s gorgeously airy, soft vocals soar through a higher range that so effortlessly complements the track’s more downbeat sound, a complete contrast that together interweaves delicacy and poignance to a tee. With a crescendo to conclude the track’s slowly ebbing sound, ‘I Said I’m Fine’ erupts into an emotionally invigorated high depicted through clashing drums, shimmer guitar riffs and strums, resounding bass and an all around hazy reverberation you can’t help but get completely lost within. As a slow burner, Marlene has not just made a song worth listening to the entire way through, but a mesmerising piece of art to be cherished for a long time to come.
Lyrically as you’d expect from such a haunting sound, ‘I Said I’m Fine’ paints a deeply resonant picture of unrequited feelings and over-romanticisation, losing yourself in someone while they don’t even cast a look in your direction. Heavily soaked in lyrics that are vastly open to interpretation, Marlene’s unravelling mental love affair is one that you have to unpack all on your own, making your own conclusions and connections between the journey of heartbreak and self-love she’s embarked upon. From the line ‘I went through the blue, straight into your soul, that’s criminal’ , it’s almost alluded that Marlene’s found herself escaping her darker emotions by replacing the hole they left with the visions of her new obsession, filling her emptiness with dreams of a lover to take the space. But just as much as someone can bring joy, they can quickly take it away, and further lyrics like ‘my obsessive brain was full of the ghost of you’ embody the pain and cyclical thoughts that come with losing someone that perhaps was never hers to begin with. The heart-wrenching chorus makes it clear she’s continuing to struggle thoughout, repeating lines and singing ‘I’m fine, one more time and they’ll believe you’, desperate not just to convince others but to also convince herself she’s coping much better than she truly is. A final climax ties it all together, showing a thoughtful level of introspection as Marlene reveals ‘it was never about you, it’s what it says about me’, knowing that perhaps all along she needed to work on herself and deal with her emotions. Whilst that’s what we inferred from the gorgeous journey that Marlene tells, ‘I Said I’m Fine’ is a truly wondrous piece of art you can appreciate in so many ways, detailing a story worth unpacking, relating to and finding yourself in too.
Check out ‘I Said I’m Fine’ here to cascade through Marlene’s dreamy sound and poignant message that embodies an all too relatable struggle with mental health and self-worth.
Written by: Tatiana Whybrow
Photo Credits: XUS Photography
// This coverage was created via Musosoup, #SustainableCurator.
