Lilianna Kelly
Staff Writer
The artist girl in red released her third studio album “BLUE” on October 23. It brought four new songs and followed her second album “I’m Doing It Again, Baby!” with standalone singles, “Confession” and “Hemingway.”
The EP introduces a new color narrative, first teased on Oct. 5 when Marie Ulven shared an Instagram post captioned “felt blue, might delete later.” She then changed her Instagram handle to @girlinblue and her bio to “once red, now blue,” before releasing lead single “blue” just two weeks prior to the EP’s debut.
The lead single, “Blue,” opens this EP up with Ulven seemingly in the bargaining phase of grief. Some discuss the “process of healing” after heartbreak and “focusing on yourself,” but what happens when “doing the work” is just a strategy? Throughout the verses of this track, she sings of simply trying to get her life together, not out of self-love or the need to be better, but to increase her chances of getting back together by autumn.
Lines like “Now all the months pass, and I see you face to face / I wonder if you see all the efforts that I made” so blatantly expose the true intent behind Ulven’s hard work. She’d do just about anything to rewrite the ending, willing to abandon her own boundaries for just a one more chance.
On the other hand, Ulven fully turns the magnifying glass onto herself in “Missing person.” You don’t find many breakup songs where the artist seems to take full accountability, owning their self-sabotage and acknowledging the hurt that their actions caused. Ulven does the opposite, singing “It hurts to accept / That I was the one to make you feel less / Make you depressed / I made you a mess.”
Near the chorus, Ulven also acknowledges that despite knowing the relationship ended due to mistakes she made, that it does not make the pain of her heartbreak magically disappear.
She sings “But you’re my person / Without you, my world ends / Without you, I’m half the woman I was / Like missing you to pieces didn’t break me enough.” This song wholly highlights the complexities of the destruction she caused.
“Worst Case” explores the fear of allowing someone in when emotional walls are high. We so often allow our trepidation of past relationships bleed into new ones, answering all new opportunities with avoidance out of anxiety of the unknown.
The script flips towards the end of the track with Ulven realizing that the true “worst case” is allowing fear to prevent her from experiencing life to its fullest potential, as she sings “I answered all my fears so I wouldn’t have to try / But worst case happens when you don’t live your life.”
The final track of “BLUE” is a song called “Clean Slate.” It talks about the feeling of knowing a relationship is fractured and wondering what steps were taken to get to that point. Ulven describes the difficulties of letting go and starting over despite uncertainties. Lines like “We used to never need space, want breaks, what changed? / “Sorry, babe” doesn’t seem to get us too far” let the listener know that things weren’t always like this.
The end of the track shows Ulven taking accountability, once again owning up to her avoidant tendencies. She sings “Can I look you in the eyes, I’m being so avoidant / There’s no place to hide, I’m flettin’ the moment.” This song lives in that space between asking questions whilst already knowing the answers, and the struggle that can come with saying the truth to someone that you love.
Overall, this was phenomenal work from “girl in blue.” While some of her latest works have not been up to most fans’ standards, this new era may be a turning point for Ulven. With carefully handled production, “BLUE” explores the challenges of unresolved feelings, dealing with change and remaining trapped in the wreckage of your own making. I definitely fell in love this October, and this EP was the subject of my devotion.