Singer-songwriter Lizzy McAlpine joined NPR Music to perform tracks from her latest album, “five seconds flat” in a live NPR Tiny Desk Concert on Nov. 8.
Standing alongside the group Tiny Habits, McAlpine performed a stripped back version of her tracks “ceilings,” “all my ghosts,” “weird,” and an unreleased song titled “Emma.” Her album explores love as something that haunts her yet she continues to long for.
In “ceilings,” McAlpine has a guitar in hand while the members of Tiny Habits join her in serene and lullaby-like harmony. Through this track, she sings of how lovely it is to be rained on and yearn to stay with someone just a little bit longer as they drive home.
McAlpine reminisces over what once was as she sings out, “But it’s not real / And you don’t exist / And I can’t recall the last time I was kissed.” However, the end of the song brings forth the realization that the relationship does not exist. The song truly draws together the melancholic tone of her writing and the difficulty of living in the past.
“all my ghosts,” is far more upbeat, though the acoustic rendition performed for the concert provides a more intimate experience for the listeners. The track explores the thrill of beginning anew in a relationship, yet expresses that “all [her] ghosts,” of past relationships continue to haunt her. As the bridge approaches she sings of how she can see clarity in the future ahead for herself and how eventually, those ghosts may dissipate out of her life.
The next song provided a shock for listeners, as McAlpine announced, “This next song is unreleased, it is a song I wrote for my sister.” Named after her sister, “Emma,” the track delves into their childhoods and how both McAlpine and her sister are too old to have fun the way they did when they were younger.
She sings “But we’ve always been who we’ll always be” and acknowledges that despite the inevitability of growing old and maturing, they will always see each other as children — nothing more and nothing less. With the ability to connect to a majority of her tracks with its relatability, “Emma” easily proves how she is able to fully encapsulate such a common phenomenon. Beautifully, she transforms the feeling of watching your loved ones grow up into a piece of art to share with the rest of the world.
To finish off her setlist, McAlpine ends with the track “weird.” Originally released with artist Laura Elliott, the song dwells on her dreams of unhealthy situations and wondering if she is “weird” to look back on such memories. It is almost as if the singers have been entranced in their fantasies for too long, leading Elliott and McAlpine to ponder, “Where am I? I can’t find the door / How long have I been here for?” They have lost themselves in such memories that can, “… walk through walls now / [and] Quietly… roam the halls.”
Though the version of “weird” performed for the concert does not include Laura Elliott, all three members of Tiny Habits — Cinya Khan, Judah Mayowa and Maya Rae — perform during Elliott’s parts. While the studio version exudes a sense of emptiness, performing the song live with each singer physically beside one another produces a stronger feeling of hope and connectedness. They sing of the same experience as one another and slowly dissipate that emotion of being alone by being together.
The performance leaves many wondering whether or not there is something in the works between both McAlpine and the members of Tiny Habits. With time, there is hope for such news, especially following the announcement of McAlpine’s “The End Of The Movie” tour on Nov. 7.
Many are excited to see new themes of ghosts, films and other topics in McAlpine’s next album, as well as which artists she will invite onto her future tracks.
Lexis Pham is an Arts & Entertainment Intern for the fall 2022 quarter. She can be reached at lexisp@uci.edu.
