Healy’s Butternut is all about emotional vulnerability, the subtle details in production, and that feeling of (as Khalil Gibran says in the Prophet): “know[ing] the pain of too much tenderness.”
(Sorry for the late post! The College Experience™ happened (is happening?). But rest assured, we’re now back to our first and only priority, which is pretending we’re qualified to be music critics.)
The fifth track on Healy’s Subluxe is stripped down, production wise, with only the occasional gentle press of piano keys and train noises and the familiar swoop of text messages being sent. (The text message noises are kind of genius.) Healy’s voice has a vague tinge of static to it, almost like the track was recorded on an iPhone, except it comes off as emotionally raw and genuine and intentional rather than as just poor audio quality. The sound of muffled sniffling and someone exiting the studio at the end adds to the effect.
The subtlety of the Production™ allows Healy’s voice and the actual lyrics to shine through, and goddamn do these lyrics manage to make you feel like you’ve just said goodbye to all your friends from back home and broken up with your longtime significant other and deleted all photos of the memories you had together off your camera roll.
Butternut
Careful not to undercut
Keep a tab on me, I’ll run it up
Take off your cover up
Full moons got dark sides too
Momma said don’t fall in love
Unless you know what you’re doing
Also, there’s still hope for new Healy music🙏🙏🙏:
Also, also:
He’s right. Let The Beat Build is an absolute banger and it has a completely different vibe to Butternut, but you should check it out anyway.
You may also like:
Diet by Childish Major — another really minimal but really interesting song.
Waze by Tierra Wack
Death of the Phone Call by Whatever, Dad — it’s French!