"I Might Start Smoking", track by track by Fionn
Photo credit: Chloe Giuricich
Track By Track:
I Might Start Smoking
We thought ‘I Might Start Smoking’ was the perfect song to set the tone of this record. To us it portrays the feeling of being so done with everything, while also fighting a crippling identity crisis and watching the landscape of what we want to do with our lives change everyday. I wrote this one around the time I was deciding whether or not to go through with a breakup, so it is stitched together with the angst I was feeling at the time.
Caught Up
This song was written about my experience entering the dating scene for the first time. I would say ‘Caught Up’ is definetly one of the saltiest songs I've ever written, and writing it really did help me let off some steam. Since I had only ever experienced long-term relationships, I went into the dating world with rose coloured glasses that were promptly ripped off my face faster than I could have imagined. The lyrics depict a specific experience that was not positive, but felt even worse than it probably should have because of how fresh I was to the scene.
Goldfish
This one is about a premonition I had when I started dating somebody. I was feeling so good about getting to know this person but my gut was telling me that they were going to break my heart. The funny thing is, I wrote ‘Goldfish’ when things were good between us, so I spent months singing the song at shows hoping my suspicions were incorrect. Needless to say, my gut was right and he dropped me like a hot potato. In the moment I really did feel like an inexpensive casual pet, loved for a minute and forgotten about the next.
Leo
We wrote ‘Leo’ with our producer and good friend Max Cunningham. Going into this session, we knew that we wanted to write something fun and uplifting. I remember I had ‘I’m reading too far into horoscopes and horror movies’ written down in my notes referencing a weekend I spiraled after bingeing the entire squid game series in one night, and my fixation on figuring out the star signs of potential love interests. This is how we started the song and were directed toward its zodiac theme. Brianne and I had just found out we were Leo risings, which we were excited about since we had only ever known our Pisces sun signs. At the time the person I was seeing was actually a Leo so I thought we could be cosmically aligned, maybe it was ‘a sign’ that we were a good match. We giddily made our way through the song, writing light hearted lyrics that brought forward the Leo traits we wanted to channel, and the innocent optimism that things would work out with the person I was enchanted by at the time.
4 Leaf Clovers
‘4 Leaf Clovers’ is a light hearted song about making love. Growing up going to Catholic school, sex and shame were intertwined every time we had a lesson about the birds and the bees. Boys and girls were always separated when it was time to have ‘the talk’, and for us girls ‘the talk’ was more of a moral rant comparing losing virginity to turning our bodies from expensive Lamborghinis to beat up old Fords. This left not just me, but a lot of girls I knew at the time stuck with subconscious inhibitions when it came to sex just because of how it was presented to us at such a prominent age. I found out later that the boys in school had a completely different experience with their ‘talk’ which was presented in a much more light-hearted way. As I’ve gotten older, looking back on these experiences makes me angry, so I wanted to write an honest song that truly depicted how it feels to be with somebody you feel completely comfortable with, and how despite the way sex was presented to me it can spark innocent joy and connection.
Please Don’t Leave
In typical twin fashion, Brianne and I broke up with our long-term boyfriends at the same time. When we sat down in a writing session with our producer and friend Jared Maneirka, we both reflected on the reasons we held onto our relationships even though deep down we knew they weren’t right for us. I think we both felt like we needed our relationships, and treated them as crutches to distract from emotional problems in our inner worlds. We both learned at the same time how healthy it is to spend time getting to know ourselves rather than relying on someone else to walk us through feelings of emotional pain.
18
I wrote '18' as a way to make fun of myself after running into my middle school crush, swiftly growing heart shaped eyes and allowing myself to fall into a silly rose coloured stupor. Though I should have known better given my age and life experience, I completely reverted back to my 'One Direction' fan account days. Shocked (and slightly ashamed), I took to the music I grew up sobbing beneath my polka dot sheets to. Avril Lavigne, Taylor Swift and Kelly Clarkson were all inspirations behind the angst ridden lyrics and pop rock power chords. Girls in their 20s can blast it at a wine drunk sleepover after a successful hinge date, and girls in their teens can listen with the jaw dropping realization that those butterflies don't get tired with age. Let this be a warning to never pull a Monica Gellar, and don't give your middle/highschool crush the time of day.
2014
I wrote '2014' at a pretty low time in my life. In an attempt to keep up career momentum during Covid, in 2021 we were releasing one song per month each with a music video. Since there were no live shows happening, the more content we could pump out, the better. There was no way to reach people but the internet. It was an incredible amount of work during a bleak year, and had me far too focused on what I looked like. I, like many, have been wired to believe in, and try to live by, society's beauty standards. It's brain washing that starts at the very beginning of our lives with the toys we are given and the advertisements we watch. As women, we are especially targeted because we are taught to have our worth attached to our beauty. Though beauty standards and trends have been around since the girls in the Victorian era were painting on blue veins to appear more fair, the rise of social media made us all more susceptible to 24/7 programming and advertisements. Now, there is no escaping it. 2014 is the first year I can remember really being affected by social media's ever changing beauty standards. At the time, thigh gaps were all the rage. Being skinny enough to put your feet together without your thighs touching at all. It haunted me as a young teenager standing in my bedroom mirror, and has stuck like a bug in my brain for almost 10 years. I still have a hard time shaking it. So with all the content we were making in 2021, I put pressure on myself to look 'perfect' no matter what. That meant only drinking smoothies for weeks before shoots. I was miserable, constantly comparing myself to people, taking in everybody's highlights and comparing them to my lowest moments. No matter my efforts, there was no such thing as skinny enough. Nothing was enough. This all came to a head when I ran into an old coworker who raved onto me about how well it looked like we were doing on social media, and how good she thought we looked in all the videos. I couldn't believe it. The same trap I had been falling into watching other people's highlights, she had fallen into watching mine. It made me start to think about how others must be equally as miserable as me and how unsustainable social media culture is for our mental health.
Hurt Feelings
We wrote 'Hurt Feelings' with our good friend Kevvy Maher. The usually bright lights in our little the studio shone with a twinge of grey as we filed into the room for our session. After a few minutes of catching up we soon discovered we were all sitting on something that couldn't be described any better than 'Hurt Feelings'. The world was getting us down. This conversation led to one about Alanna and I just ending our long term relationships and within weeks, embarassing ourselves at a party we had been invited to by people we wanted to impress. There was a general feeling that we had shown a bit too much of ourselves, which we also tied back into the relationships. 'I should've walked in, played it cool, and left. You'd never know me, you'd think I was the best.' The allure had faded, and we wished desperately we could have left ourselves a mystery.
Take Me Out
‘Take me Out’ is a song based on a diary entry I wrote after a date that went really well. I was completely infatuated and resorted to pouring my feelings onto a page in my notebook. The stream of consciousness I wrote ended up being word for word both verses of the song. With inspiration from Wolf Alice's 'Don't Delete The Kisses', We brought the spoken verses to our good friend Max Cunningham who added a punchy bass line and helped shape out the angsty chorus. The song was finished within the day and we knew immediately it would be the primary single for the album.
Runaway
I wrote Runaway based off of the feeling I got listening to The Anxiety's 'Meet Me At Our Spot' and The Cranberries 'Dreams'. 'Meet Me At Our Spot' carries the timeless 'us against the world' feeling that courses through our veins when we're young and in love. I wanted to take myself back to a time when I felt that sort of wreckless and hopeful feeling at the start of an intense love affair. 'Dreams' has a very floaty feeling to it. It doesn't feel grounded in reality, and that was how I wanted Runaway to come across. The whole thing is a rose coloured fantasy created by a lovesick brain. Lyrics like, 'you'll find me in between the skyline and the stars' are meant to signify this blur between emotion, imagination, and our so called reality.
I'll Meet You In The Next Life
I wrote this one quite a few years ago after experiencing the end of my first love due to distance. I was absolutely devastated. I had this overwhelming feeling looking at my whole life ahead of me as if it was a heavy weight to carry knowing he would not be there. The opening line 'The moon hangs above my head like it could drop' is meant to explain that heaviness. With all of that being said, I felt in no way ready to stop life's momentum and settle. There was really no solution to the pain. The only answer was to say 'I'll meet you in the next life'.