OCT 24, 2024 | ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT | By Esabella George
There are winners and then there are losers in every piece about love when parting ways. Sort of in everything when we are searching or pursuing something. Should we just stop looking? Sometimes it really feels that way. In the most complementary way, that is what listening to Hutson’s art is like, especially when you aren’t one to ever be able to get over someone or a moment with someone where you felt wronged. I find new lyrics everytime I listen to one of his albums, and all of a sudden they speak to the exact method of avoidance I’ve been using, and it’s as if I am standing right across from the person who has hurt me or that I have hurt by not letting them go.
Christian Lee Hutson is my favorite living artist…No one has lyrics like him. On September 27, Hutson released his third album “Paradise Pop. 10,” following 2020’s “Beginners” and 2022’s “Quitters.” I think it is brilliant, as it is set up with the very first track as if we are in a play. Settings, stages and characters are built from a place inside of every sentimental heart. Like, if you’re listening to this guy (Christian Lee Hutson) you’ve probably been yearning ever since you knew what that feeling was.
The very first track is “Tiger,” and it is set as a “play inside a play” with a character the narrator is speaking to going by Charlotte for the night. They’re both playing parts, yet their performances are only temporary. There is an obvious sentiment of reflection in the narrator, the characters he introduced have seen a relationship come to an end, yet the speaker is clearly grappling with the remains of a relationship he was giving a lot more to. “I will always be the one that got out of your way.” I mean, imagine feeling that way. It’s such a painful lyric, yet that’s what heartbreak is like, looking at whatever is coming next not in an enthusiastic way but as a, well, change is the only continuous and permanent experience on planet Earth. I don’t want to spoil the song, but I will go ahead and say the final lyric of the track is “Sorry that I couldn’t cut it / Go get ‘em tiger,” and then there is a roaring applause that follows. It sort of reminds me of Phoebe Bridgers’ “I Know the End” in the way that that song concludes, yet “Tiger” feels much more contained, as if we are drifting off in a play with much order where people have theatrical etiquette.
Next, a classic Christian Lee Hutson song hits my ear drums while reading iconic Gothic novel by Matthew Gregory Lewis “The Monk,” perhaps thematically not the best choice for myself; I’ve been wondering as this is his third studio length album, how do these songs align themselves so seamlessly with every phase of a love my life has experienced. “How could you know how I feel?” Hutson and Phoebe Bridgers repeat throughout the second track “Carousel Horses.” Everyone should listen to this song. I love how it follows the very isolated, stark first track; Hutson really captured my attention to the song’s meaning with the line, “Like carousel horses, we’re set on our courses, you’re always right on my heels.” The emphasis on the difference between two people in a relationship is that it is not always one grand happy union, each individual has a path, and will drift away on another course at some point if it is not meant to be. But to feel almost chased and caught up to all the time by a loved one…it’s one of those things we can only really look back on once the bliss is removed.
As for “how could you know how I feel?” Either that is a feeling provoked by feeling misunderstood by someone continuously making you feel like they’ve been there. Or it is echoing when the relationship was so good, that you feel that your partner somehow knows everything about you so quickly. It’s flattering? Or is it the hardest thing to hear? To me, this song feels like loads of pent up resentment toward someone who says they know everything or they’ve tried everything, and they’ve already calculated how you may respond or feel.
In another line, he sings “You broke the news in our favorite corner booth,” for in relationships we always have our little rituals with each other, our favorite things. This corner booth, I imagine was a spot that became an unspoken custom in the relationship, but then it became the place where the two part ways, one much more unwillingly than the other, as the speaker describes his partner saying to him “you shouldn’t feel stupid / I just knew before you did.”
And then it all just becomes a collection of memories once you’re alone. He seems like the kind of boyfriend who did not get to talk much, and then this is his track where he just gets it all off of his chest.
And if you’ve ever been told by someone that “they know the feeling” when you know they don’t really, because again, there are always quitters or losers in a relationship when it ends, and someone who wasn’t willing to keep it going.
“She’s a Revolving Door” opens up the metaphor of the transience of a very recent heartbreak.
“Autopilot” is the third track, and when he asks if he’s gonna lose the girl, well yeah…spoiler alert this character did. He suggests they might meet again later in life. It’s wishful thinking, most everyone has been there before, when something is still so fresh that your future still panders towards their dreams above your own.
“Am I gonna lose you?” To think about these matters while you are in the midst of experiencing a love with someone is painstakingly horrifying. Some people are just that way. Do we find ourselves later in life? Is that so unrealistic a thing to wish for? Hutson has me lost in the shuffle.
Going against the grain of what your friends and family will always say, he concludes the track saying, “you can always get me back.” It’s almost like the choice was made months or years ago, regardless of how hurt we are, we will still pine for someone unattainable, regretfully offering ourselves back any time in the future, when the other person is ready.
Next is “Water Ballet,” and this one continues the theme of a sort of theatrical dream, as a loved one spins away and away from the other person in the relationship, leaving the narrator artless, looking back and saying “when I was your man / I got it all wrong,” and these thoughts unfold once it’s over.
“The present interrupts the past
I swirl around the ice in my glass
And it looks like water ballet
Synchronized swimmers circling the drain”
The reality of the loss of what they had interrupts any beautiful motion that was once set in stone for the two, he is now extracting art in the little things in front of him, a figurative magnifying glass amplifying the spinning ice in his glass, it looks like a performance he misses. Is it the one that got away?
“Candyland” is track five, and it reminds me so much of Hutson’s very first EP from 2016, “Christian Lee Hutson on Audiotree Live,” for the bluegrass feels: especially, the line “what makes you so sure you want me back,” lending itself to that person you should not be going back to; there are visuals of silly imagery things, wants, shared dreams that once were talked about like it was undeniable that they would come true. Once, when the dreams matched, and then they shift which will always catch at least one person off guard.
“You only think about falling in love, I only think about you.” Hutson’s sixth track “Flamingos” reflects on a relationship that is coming back to him, for what do we make of being the one to walk away or let someone go, likely feeling burdensome to them, and they may never help making you feel like enough or that they even want you to stay and stick it out with them. This follows the theme of the entire project “Paradise Pop. 10” as we often console ourselves with belief and hope that we will crash into each other’s lives again. When in reality, aren’t we just hoping and going to eventually make the “let’s wait until a better time for this.” I interpret it that Hutson is grappling with: “Losers remember the people who won / Winners are never afraid to losе”
And then there is “Fan Fiction” which has a lyric I am very stuck on. “I wish I knew you back then, I think we would’ve been friends.” To believe this amidst fictionalizing and making up literal content about the people we fall in love with, the people we won’t ever get over, just to think “did I make them all up?” The way Hutson’s character leans on his belief in the person he had this relationship with, he almost fills in the blanks about the other person, a source of comfort.
There is a lingering sentiment here: if there is a winner and a loser in every relationship, wouldn’t it be so nice to be equally thought of, sought after, re-narrated by the person who is mesmerized by you?
There is not a song I didn’t like. I remember hearing Hutson play these brand new songs over the summer, when he announced he would be a surprise opener at a Soccer Mommy show in Hollywood. I immediately bought a ticket. It was the best decision I could have made, hearing him playing new songs live for the first time, I loved how confident he is in his art because it is spectacular. I could listen to him sing for hours.
