Soccer Mommy (Sophie Allison)’s “Clean” was one of the best albums of 2018, and this year she’s released a couple one-off tunes that are easily in the running for best songs of 2019. “lucy” was the first track she put out this year, and it’s fantastic—catchy, fun, weird. Allison sings about fighting against seductive temptations, fighting against the allure of a real devil. She has a such a knack for melody, and you can hear in “lucy” especially how she makes these beautiful melodic jumps in the space of line, e.g. at the start of the song, the way she leaps up from “the root of” to “all evil” is sort of addictive, there’s something so pleasant about it. And she does that over and over again in the song.
“yellow is the color of her eyes” is also catchy and beautiful, but has a heavier feel than “lucy.” Allison said that the song is about being away from her seriously ill mother while she was touring and feeling like she losing time with her that she would never get back. The music feels deep and lush on this song, layers and layers of guitars, supported by a steady, chugging rhythm. Allison sings about being far away from her mom and missing her, seeing her mom’s face in ocean waves. And then at the end of the song, she delivers this gut-punch: “Loving you isn’t enough/you’ll still be deep in the ground when it’s done/I’ll know the day when it comes/I’ll feel the cold when they put out my sun,” heartbreaking shit. An incredible articulation of a deep feeling of being someone’s child and wanting your parents to know how much you love them, and knowing still that no matter how much you love them, they’re still going to die. It’s an amazing song.