renforshort Takes Us Through ‘a girl's experience,’ Track by Track
We’ve been feeling good about Toronto alt pop baddie renforshort for a while now, we even have a terribly taken underexposed Polaroid on our wall from her first visit to the OTW bubble hole a ways back. The vocal talent, art direction, and easy hooks have always made her an artist on her way for us, and wow, has she popped on her latest EP, a girl's experience. If you can’t be bothered to pretend to like subpar tunes and need to know who’s the one for your summer fun soundtrack, then a girl's experience is a solution for all. We spun up the internet machine to ask the artist herself to dive into her latest project below.
"on my way!"
"on my way!" was written about the hopefulness and desire to improve your mental health and state. I wanted to write about the frustrations of feeling so out of control in regards to my mental health and the hope that there will be a day when I get “better.” I like to make the joke that I wrote this song when I was still on my antidepressants, but its not that funny lol. I like this song because it's optimistic, and that's something I never really think to write about. Sometimes I have days where I am so confident that things are gonna work out the way I envision them, whereas others I feel like that may not be the case, and this just so happened to fall on one of the confident days. I’m really proud of this song because it was challenging for me to write it, and it is a true testament to the place I was at in my life.
Key words: mental health, progress, happiness, uplifting
"feeling good"
I live off nostalgia (along with most people lol). This song begins being aimed at a person, and then it becomes more introspective. I start looking at myself and reflecting on my own habits that hold me back from creating new, fulfilling memories, and future feelings of nostalgia. I think it's really hard to remember that as you're living your life, those moments you’re living through eventually become really special, even if they don’t feel that way in the moment. This song is about not being able to see that yet. It's holding onto the past, when I felt I had no responsibilities or commitments, and life was my idea of perfect, but I was also a kid waiting to be where I am today. This song took many forms and lived many lives before it was sent off to be mixed and mastered. I could’ve worked on it forever, but I am really happy with it and the contents of the song.
Key words: Nostalgia, 2014, Tumblr,
"you’re the one"
I wanted to write a song that was kind of mindless and cute. This song is about the initial attraction to someone that you can’t hold back from thinking about all the time. Creating scenarios in your head about what your relationship with this person could be. This song was such a challenge for me because I was nervous about writing something more forward, but I ended up having a lot of fun with it. I love doing something more conversational; it’s really fun to sing like that and write like that. To me, this song is something you can walk around listening to in your headphones or blasting in your car. It's pretty versatile and I love it!
Key words: Crush, lust, fantasize, cute
"pretend you like me"
I wanted to write something that felt really desperate lol. At the time, I was single for the first time in a really long time, and I had no idea how to do it. I always felt like everything was so one-sided, and I just wanted to talk about that feeling. Alas, "pretend to like me" was birthed. It went through a lot of variations in the verses because i loved the chorus and bridge so much, but felt like the verses really didn’t match. So after four revisions, it’s finally at a place that I love and am so happy with!
Key words: love, desperation, crush
