Artist-songwriter Alana Springsteen has returned with ‘note to self‘ — a soul-searching new song that reckons with the pain of her early years and lights her way toward a brighter future. Accompanied by an official music video filmed in her hometown of Pungo, Virginia, ‘note to self’ marks the start of Springsteen’s most emotionally revealing chapter yet.
Written by Springsteen, Trannie Anderson, and Mark Trussell, ‘note to self’ is one of the first new songs from Springsteen since the arrival of her acclaimed debut album TWENTY SOMETHING — a three-part powerhouse that offered an up-close look at the emotional whirlwind of life in her early 20s. Equal parts autobiography and outpouring, ‘note to self’ finds the 25-year-old musician rising to an even more daring level of honesty as she digs deep into her personal history and slowly starts to heal from old wounds.
“The day I wrote ‘note to self,’ I had just come home from a really intense therapy session where I not-so-carefully unpacked all of this. I remember sitting on my couch with my guitar, staring into space, trying to “pull myself together” enough to write. Nothing came. I felt numb. It’s the numbness that helped me realize that the “pulling myself together” was preventing me from seeing what was actually there. Maybe what I really needed was to give myself permission to fall apart” shares Springsteen.
Produced by Springsteen and Trussell, ‘note to self’ unfolds in moody guitar tones and sparse but potent beats as she addresses her childhood self with both tenderness and a fierce refusal to soften the truth. At the chorus, Springsteen acknowledges her longtime tendency to abandon her own needs for the sake of keeping the peace, then delivers a word of loving reassurance. After building to a searingly raw catharsis at the bridge, ‘note to self’ closes out on a moment of self-reclamation, echoing the quiet confidence of someone who’s beginning to fully believe in herself.
