Laura Jane Grace - 'Cuffing Season'
Laura Jane Grace, armed with stinging lyrics and an acoustic, strips the arrangement bare on 'Cuffing Season'.
"I think as you get older and go through life's hurts and heartbreaks, it gets harder to let yourself be open and vulnerable" says songwriter Laura Jane Grace. "But when you do, it can be so worth it even if you end up hurt and heartbroken again". Our innate ability to love in the face of adversity, then, is the focus of 'Cuffing Season'. This is the latest single from the legendary Against Me! vocalist and songwriter. Whilst the minimal arrangement is far from the pyrotechnics of her former band, the result is no less rousing or defiant.
The track is unapologetically simple and short. The guitar strums incessantly, only to be joined in the outro by a shaker. All is stark, Grace's vocal prowess is the main event. Every line is growled and howled, every plosive spat out with the intensity of a pump-action.
The opening lyrics are more nihilistic, such as "And if the world isn't flat, may as well f***ing be. What difference does it make to you and me?" This is tempered, later, by the tenderness of lyrics such as "I wanna let myself feel the whole of you and maybe you'll let yourself feel it too." The chorus lyrics repeat "What goes around is what comes around", reinforcing this circuital image of love and heartbreak.
In 'Cuffing Season', Grace is optimistic in the face of the unknowable, steadfastly refusing to give up on finding connection for fear of losing it. As the old adage goes, "if you don't learn to find joy in the snow, you'll have less joy in your life but still the same amount of snow".
