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In what seemed like a marathon sprint, English singer-songwriter Griff mixed the entirety of her latest single, “last night’s mascara,” in various dressing rooms over the course of just a few weeks while on tour with Sabrina Carpenter. She originally wrote the song for her debut album Vertigo but ultimately scrapped the track. Now, almost four months later, “last night’s mascara” has found its place in Griff’s discography, right where it was meant to land. 

The single opens with her deep voice flourishing, rich and haunting with her British charm alive and well in her pronunciation of “mascara.” Using the ever-so-normal image of day-old mascara on a Sunday morning, Griff paints an innately human picture of a girl left feeling all the feelings she tried to forget the night before. She compares the mascara to an enduring memory—something grueling to escape, something that leaves a physical mark. The mascara still lingers on Sunday morning. “I'm on my knees at the altar, baby / Asking God to wash you from my soul,” she belts.

Griff is screaming, trying to break through some invisible barrier unknown to the audience, and perhaps even to herself. In this song, repetition is Griff’s sharpened pen. The words “look at me now” repeat over and over, Griff begging for the subject to really see her and her emotional landscape. Even when she tries to rub off the mascara, it will never fully come off. This cyclone of emotions sends listeners spinning with her. 

Sonically, “last night’s mascara” is reminiscent of her production choices on Vertigo—but this time, there’s a level of heightened precision. Griff first performed the song on the ‘Short N’ Sweet Tour’ and watched as the crowd thundered. She tried her hardest to capture the resounding energy of the room in studio production, the synths ringing rhythmically, almost creating a heartbeat-like realism to the track. 

“Last night’s mascara” represents so much more than the song itself. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Griff revealed that when making her debut album, she found herself lost and unsure of which songs would be considered “good.” Returning to a song from that period of musical insecurity gave her a sense of liberation and power over her art. 

Having opened for pop icons Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift this year, Griff has already catapulted up the ranks. “Last night’s mascara” might just be the necessary hurdle she had to cross in order to enter her own pop takeover, moving forth with a newfound trust in herself.