While we don’t keep statistics I’m sure that Marte Eberson is one of the most reviewed artists in NMC.
But I make no apologies for that and especially just now when she is going through a transition a couple of years after resuming her solo career following a six-year layoff doing other things.
What do I mean by that? Well, perhaps it is just a case of getting a little older but her latest single, ‘Start over again’ is more contemplative than I’ve heard from her previously. In the recent past her songs, most of which appeared on the album ‘Free’ a couple of years ago, were played out at pace, one or two breathlessly, as if she was trying to compact as much ‘life’ as she could into every single day, including relationships, and as if a Tarot card reader had pulled out the Death card to remind her that nothing is forever.
And behind it all was that desperate need to be ‘free.’
With this song, ‘Start over again’ there is a different tack, as if she rues not holding onto something that she should have done in the past; that she has allowed that something important to slip through her fingers and escape and that she may never see it again. Whatever it is it transcends mere nostalgia.
It “was it a mistake” she intones, “rushing through the nights and days/when we felt alive/and time was on our side” and when “every night (was) a sparkling light”.
She “wannas” (I’ve been itching to make a verb out of that) “bring back good times/What we left behind/before we lost track of time”.
The scenario is similar to that of Arcade Fire’s ‘Suburban War’ in which the protagonist laments the lost days of his suburban youth,
“With my old friends/I can remember when
You cut your hair/I never saw you again
Now the cities we live in/could be distant stars
And I search for you/In every passing car”…
And then, “My old friends, they don’t know me now”.
For Marte, it “all felt right” and she’s “missing those endless nights”, wondering “Can we start over again?”
The ‘we’, which is missing from the title but certainly not from the lyrics, is there to be interpreted.
It could be no more than a generalisation but as I have said on many occasions previously I am convinced Marte is often writing about a particular person or people in her songs. Moreover, she has stated on record that this next album, which be released later in the year, will be “her most personal yet.”
There is another possible explanation, namely that she is merely articulating a desire to return to ‘the simpler old days’ when everything moved at a slower pace and you weren’t forever being bombarded and bothered by the World Wide Web, 666 with its endless pap and fake news; Amazon and Netflix; YouTube; podcasts; Zoom chats; Facebook; Instant Gran; X, Y and Z…
Perhaps so, but at the end of the day, I remain convinced that there is a romantic episode at the heart of this. The line “missing those endless nights” is a clue surely.
And in any case because that’s what Marte Eberson does. Par excellence.
Musically, there has been a direction change as well. Some of the ‘Free’ tracks were quite convoluted but here the production is altogether different; more clinical while at the same time being towards the Phil Spector or Trevor Horn end of the spectrum, each instrument shimmering with its own importance, merging into a whirlpool that sucks you in to where Marte is waiting for you.
And if someone had told me it was the latest from Lana Del Ray I wouldn’t have argued.
Returning to what I said earlier, I only hope that the song is not one prompted in any way by the thought of ageing. All artists will go through that at one time or another.
At the end of the day age is all in the mind, Marte. Look at me, I’m 95 and I’m still up until the early hours writing this stuff and then up again with the birds at the crack of dawn to start all over again.
Honest.
And I just love (again) the Hollywood style imagery in the press photo.
Find her on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marteebersonmusic
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marteeberson/
Photo by Ole Martin Halvorsen.
