Caroline Romano is a Nashville-based musician, who at just 21-years-old has already managed to generate millions of streams across her catalogue of music. Her new EP, the wonderfully titled A Brief Epic, is made up of three past singles, This House, Guts, and Mississippi Air, together with three new songs.
Across its duration, A Brief Epic depicts the start, middle, end, and aftermath of “a whirlwind relationship”. Being the individual that I am, my getting on point is the new track St. George, which portrays a relationship that has come to a close, as Romano describes:
“St. George is about when the goodbyes have been said and the parting niceties have been exchanged. It’s also about the anger and wanting all of the memories gone, but also wanting it all back at the same time. It’s about wondering what could’ve been done differently, but also knowing you couldn’t have done anything at all to change the outcome.”
Records about relationships that don’t quite happen — jigsaw puzzles where the final piece doesn’t fit — are my emotional security blanket. This is evidenced by the fact I only just covered the thematically similar Never Right, by Sea Glass and Yes Kid, a couple of weeks back.
St. George boasts a strong Taylor Swift vibe from its opening voicemail message, which reminds me of Swift’s iconic phone call from one of her own epic break-up singles, We Are Never Getting Back Together (see below). Here the phone call is from Caroline to her ex, pragmatic in intent, yet emotive in the memories an old sweater, a beach and a forgotten book can evoke, all played atop a Taylor-esque piano refrain.
The resulting production uses that gently heartbroken piano melody to create a sense of vulnerability, and a steady heartbeat-like rhythm provides an emotive sense of pace. As Romano hit the chorus, a crisp, quickening drumbeat gives St. George a sense of determined resolve.
Side note: In writing this post, I stumbled upon this epic performance by Taylor Swift at the 2013 Grammy’s, where she employs a British accent and states “I’m sorry, I’m busy opening up the Grammys”. Worth a watch.