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No, it isn’t funny; it’s beautifully constructed, and an immediate re-listen, as the Melbourne-based Romanie gives us a vibrant, diaristic dive into her inner qualms in her sophomore album It's Not That Funny. Romanie's sophomore outing is hopeful, sardonic, and always sweetly sung, drifting between sparse guitar-driven folk pop and angsty rock, especially in standout track "Uh Oh." It's Not That Funny is an album of wondrous range that immediately grabbed our attention. Wanting to know more, as always, we invited Romanie to spill the tea on what exactly isn't that funny. 

"Anything or Anyone"

"Anything or Anyone" was written about loneliness. The feeling of feeling lost and thinking you’re completely on your own from time to time. I think it’s the perfect opener for this record, as the theme is talking about my inner demons — this song ultimately is about self-sabotaging and an ode to my community.

"I Tried To Erase You"

I wrote "I Tried To Erase You" in October 2022 — this song was one that didn’t make it onto my first record and was put into the song graveyard. I played it to one of my band members once years later and rediscovered how it made me feel. This is one of the first songs we recorded with my live band after our first tour. 

"Falling"

Initially, this song was written about falling for the wrong people, but after recording it, I felt like it was more of an omen of my own breaking down. Ultimately, the song that is the most fun to play live and the music video was shot at my 30th birthday party, where I talked all my friends into wearing wedding dresses. Another love letter to my friends and community.

"My Eyes Don’t Light Up When I Look At You"

"My Eyes Don’t Light Up When I Look At You" is a breakup song. Written in 2022 during Phil Elverum's School of Song workshop after a prompt where we had to write about a time when we unintentionally hurt someone, I reflected on a past relationship and this song poured out of me. 

"I Won’t Yell"

"I Won’t Yell" was co-written with Adam Hyde (Peking Duk, Keli Holiday) and Tom Stell (Golden Features) during a three-day co-writing session in Sydney. Originally stemming from an old folk song, "Smoke and Doubts" we reworked the song in a few hours, and "I Won’t Yell" was born. The song is about not being heard as a woman: oftentimes we get called ‘too much’ or ‘too loud’ with the result of keeping our emotions to ourselves, or not speaking up about the things that we want to. "I Won’t Yell" was a fun song to make, letting go of my constant self-judgement with the nudge of Tom and Adam, who let me yell in the vocal booth.

"When Will We Lose Hope?"

I wrote "When Will We Lose Hope?" in January 2024 at Adrienne Lenker's School of Song, after Adrienne’s lecture about unblocking ourselves. I remember going through a time where I wasn’t writing much and feeling a little down about music; it was right before I was embarking on my 'Are We There Yet?' album band tour, and I was extremely stressed, running on autopilot and avoiding feeling things (now looking back). Watching the lecture, I remember crying to Adrienne Lenker, stressing out how important it was to feel things and notice the world around us. "When Will We Lose Hope?" stemmed from sitting with uncomfortable sad feelings and letting them all in/wash over you. The contrast of having negative thoughts and having hope defines the divide between the two sonic worlds on the records. 

"Only Darkness Grows"

I wrote this one in February 2022, at the School of Song with Robin Pecknold; the prompt was called the Translator prompt, and it was where I discovered the Dictionary of Lost Sorrows and learned about solipsism. I sat down at my piano with a bottle of wine and wrote this song in one sitting, about spiraling and the sad concept of solipsism, where you can never truly understand other people.

"Thrift Shop"

"Thrift Shop" is about being in a situation where you feel completely misunderstood, and you decide to walk away. 

"I Can’t Think About A Future"

I wrote this back in August 2022, during Miya Folick's School of Song workshop about detail and specificity. I had recently started playing around with alternative tunings and found a nylon string guitar at the op shop, which we used in the recording studio to keep the demo feeling of the song as I wrote it.

"Uh Oh"

I wrote "Uh Oh" in May 2023 with my friend Hamish Mitchell (Armlock) at Purple Wayne Studios during a time of personal turbulence. It’s a song about life's sometimes chaotic journey, the internal monologue, and the self-awareness of it all. The bare bones of "Uh Oh" was written just in a few hours. I was going through a rough patch in life with some health scares and homesickness, and I was catching up with Hamish. We were going to write a song just to get our minds off of things, and we wrote this over a couple of hours. It was a really fun day, and I kept listening back to the demo in the weeks after, whilst I was dealing with some more personal things. A few months later, I showed this to my live band, and we thought it was catchy, so we started playing it live. The scream got added afterwards mainly as a joke, but everything evolved so naturally on this song.

We recorded this song right off the back of my first-ever national band tour; it was the first time taking my live band into the studio and working with a new producer. I had been introduced to Sam Swain a couple of weeks earlier, and he had a couple of free studio days come up, so I decided to take my band into the studio to start tracking some songs without any expectations. We started with "Uh Oh" and immediately got excited; I think Sam captured our energy really well. The end result was all recorded within those first studio sessions, and most of it was tracked live — all of us looking at each other crammed in a room together.

"Power At Play"

I wrote this song after the 95th woman was killed by the hands of a man in Australia last year. I read the news article on Sherele Moody’s femicide watch, cried, and wrote this in one sitting. I didn’t want to finish or develop it further as I thought it captured how I felt at the time, and we added this song on last. It was recorded just with one room mic, and you can hear me shifting in my seat at some point, all the studio noises left in.