"All moments in life are really important, but I think there's like definitive moments - and like 18 years old, graduating high school, going to college or going to do something else, and like, launching off into the world - it's such a big moment. When I was 18, like, my sister died, and I was, like, frozen. All my friends, their world was opening, and mine was closing. That's just like what happened. And so, it's kind off - I reflect on it a lot, I write about it a lot - I write about it from my perspective now: about what it's like to grow up through that, and then drift back into that tragedy stuff".
Jack Antonoff, Rolling Stone, 2015
Prolific singer-songwriter and record producer Jack Antonoff finally addressed his crippling personal tragedy in a 'conversational' manner with “Everybody Lost Somebody", a track from his sophomore album Gone Now (2017). The track shares the same maximalist approach to production that characterized the album's lead single "Don't Take the Money", with Antonoff relying on 1980s pop influences, grandiose saxophone riffs and a more introspective approach to craft a grand-yet-intimate cathartic listening experience:
'I think pain is waiting alone at the cornerTryna get myself back home, yeahLooking like everybodyKnowing everybody lost somebodyI'm standing here in the cold andI gotta get myself back home soonLooking like everybodyKnowing everybody lost somebodyEverybody lost somebodyEverybody lost somebody'
Lyrics:
The song elevates the everyday act of surviving loss and coping with trauma into a triumphant and celebratory experience, one that can be transcended collectively instead of being endured in isolation. Its akin to a tribal, communal approach to individual emotional malaise, as opposed to the Western clinical practice of separating patients from their respective communities for the purposes of treatment. While powerful and distinctive, the track nevertheless seems to lack the lyrical specificity that one might expect from a track that was described as a momentous confession. At this point, Antonoff is still more comfortable in addressing grief and trauma with his wide array of production techniques, as opposed to his lyrics.
