ALANA SPRINGSTEEN

                                                              "when we were friends" 

                                                              Columbia Records/Sony Nashville

As she’s on the fast track to being a top contender for this year’s breakout star, Alana Springsteen continues to pour gasoline on the fire with the third teaser from her very highly anticipated Twenty Something: Figuring It Out; the second of her three-part album release that’s due out July 14, 2023. 

Following the release of the project’s title track and “chameleon,” Springsteen now offers “when we were friends.”

The song, co-written by Alana with Sasha Alex Sloan and Pete Good, pulls its soft instrumentation into the signature moodiness that we’ve grow accustomed to hearing from Springsteen, perfectly hushing the overall vibe so that her voice sits amid the myriad of missing you emotion embedded into the lyrics. 

She remembers specific moments of their friendship vividly,  painting pictures in list like fashion through each of the verses as she tells of knowing how they’d always pick up whenever she called, how they were the first ones to spot that the guy she was falling for wasn’t the right one for her, and how they’d spend the night at her house whenever she wasn’t doing okay.

All of this, though, coming from her today perspective of stark realization, “I wish I knew that those were the days,” a line which she sings in the second verse with hints of sadness to her tone that shows she clearly carries some regrets of not being able to go back and relive each moment to its fullest, before pounding into the chorus and facing the mirror of the truth that she’s currently living: 

“Now I don’t even know how you’ve been

Truth is, I miss when

When we were friends”

With this uber ambitious three-part project, Springsteen very openly is exploring the many different complex layers of navigating life in that space stuck between growing up and wanting to hold tightly to your youth, endearingly opening her own diary to share the ups, downs, and confusing struggles.

However, by expertly leaving more than enough room within her own stories, she has continually allowed the listener to connect with each song and relate it to their own personal life, elevating her status to simply becoming the friend with a shoulder to lean on as they grow through this awkward stage of life together.

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)

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