All Of The Subtle Rejections

Caroline Rose “Miami”

“Miami” is a song in which Caroline Rose takes stock of their recent past, takes some responsibility for certain messes and conflicts, and then tries to figure out how to be pragmatic and move on. It’s a lot of song and it sounds to me like something that was very cathartic to make, but also totally draining.

There are two bits here that stand out to me and elevate it above a lot of similar gut-spiller songs. In the first verse after Rose describes a relationship that went very, very cold they arrive at this conclusion: “You know you never knew my worth / honestly, neither did I.” The first part of that line feels like a cliché now, the kind of therapy/advice language that’s often used in a self-aggrandizing sort of way, but with an important acknowledgment of complicity. It deflates a potentially self-congratulatory line, but also makes it a clear a lesson was actually learned.

The second lyrical idea I like here is that Rose writes about their mother taking issue with a tendency to be glibly miserable – the sort of dark self-pity that drives a lot of online humor – and having to explain that it’s basically a coping mechanism. There’s an interesting emotional push and pull in this, particularly as they feel bad for making their parent worry and feel like their good advice is not heard. By the end of this section there’s a sense that both mother and child are seeing each other clearly – not in some profound way, but in that way where parents and children eventually find themselves on more equal ground as fellow adults.

Buy it from Bandcamp.