An Album Review: Laufey — Bewitched
The gramophone creaks a little as she puts a record on it. A gentle melody starts to play a moment after she puts down the needle. Soon she begins the little dance practice session with her sister. On the ivory-tiled living room, she held hands with her sister and took the lead by moving her left foot first, and her sister followed suit. They try to keep up with other, sometimes clumsily, following the ebb and flow of the music.
That was a snapshot from my grandmother’s younger days in the ’50s, or at least that’s how I always imagined it to be. And it was replayed vividly in my head as I listen to Laufey’s Bewitched.
Laufey’s Spotify profile mentions that “As a musician, her goal is to bring jazz and classical music to her generation”, and in that she had succeeded.
From one end to the other, this album is about love and along with it the joys, sorrows, and all the roller coaster of emotions that it brings to someone. According to the words of Laufey herself this album isn’t strictly about romantic love, but I found the lyrics to hit harder emotionally if you interpret them in the context of romantic love. Listeners will indulge in the array of emotions that Laufey tries to convey, from loving someone who never truly loved her (Second Best, Haunted), the euphoria and joys of the moment she fell in love (While You Were Sleeping), to love affairs (California and Me).
The title track Bewitched has an almost fairy-tale-like lyrics about falling in love, accompanied by classical instrumentation. In this day and age one might feel such lyrics are cheesy, but I find it to be beautiful partly thanks to her singing voice and said instrumentation which really harkens back to ‘50s jazz. Bonus points to the melody which was hinted by a throwback (throw-forward?) in the instrumental interlude Nocturne. In a similar vein, my personal favorite is While You Were Sleeping with its dreamlike lyrics and straight-out-of Nat King Cole-era melodies.
An honorable mention goes to Letter To My 13 Year Old Self. As a mixed White-Chinese in Ireland, and with kids being kids wherever they are in the world, one can see the struggles she faced when she was young. Hearing “And just let her know, know that she’s beautiful” really makes you want to cheer for young Laufey.
“She’s so perfect,” blah, blah, blah.
— From the Start
Super-hit “From the Start” is a nice change of pace from the slower combo of the three previous songs. Her scatting over the bossa nova music in the interlude is a brief and spontaneous moment where she shows her mastery over her own voice. I also like her sense of romanticism and playfulness as she recounts about her crush harping about someone new.
Finally, opening track “Dreamer” shows her post-heartbroken self, tired of romance, where the “dreamer” likely refers to herself and her image of a perfect relationship that she’s always had in her mind. The best part about this song though, is how poetic the lyrics are while perfectly being able to embody her sense of her numbness: “And no boy’s gonna be so smart as to / Try and pierce my porcelain heart / No boy’s going to kill the dreamer in me”.
As I said in the beginning, Laufey tried to bring classical (pop) and jazz to modern audiences, and the instrumentation to her singing style perfectly embodies the oldies style (in a good way). But one thing she did really well was to adapt the lyricism to something that’s very relatable for today’s listeners. In this day and age, romance has arguably become significantly more complicated than it was 50–60 years ago in no small part due to technology and the new ways in which we can connect with new and old people alike. Laufey has brought us a perfectly classical album with modern sensibilities.
And if you were wondering why I mentioned the opening track (Dreamer) last… well, this album is about love, and you can interpret it as a love story in backwards order from how smitten she was for someone in the closing track (Bewitched), facing turmoils and feeling emotional ups and downs conveyed by all the other songs in the album, to finally stating that she’s tired of love in the opening Dreamer.
I am not aware her actual current state of affairs nor in the moment of her writing this album, but that could very well be one way to interpret the album. It could definitely be interpreted in a forward order in which a heartbroken Laufey finally finds “the one” and happily lives ever after, or it could even be interpreted in a non-sequential order, jumping through various emotions haphazardly. After all, everyone’s stories are different, and just like how drastically different the emotions of one song is to the next might be, the human heart is ultimately fickle like a candle light in the midst of a gust of wind.
Personal Rating: 9 out of 10