After a two-year period with no releases, Philip Brooks returned on the 30th of January with their new song ‘grown’. Known for their soft, introspective indie folk, with ‘grown’ Philip Brooks continues the journey along the path of nostalgia, growing up, and looking backwards and forward at the same time, a short track carrying so much emotion.
‘grown’ immerses the listener in the bittersweet feeling of having to leave a home, a place full of memories that no longer belongs to you: “I wish we could just go home right now, but my room is someone else’s”. Throughout the song, Brooks paints a picture of the place once called home, these details only emphasising the memories that are left behind: “all the marks on the frames of our doors, all the notes hidden under my floor”.
The lyrics also beautifully acknowledge that leaving a home comes with loss, but also a new phase of life ahead: hope shines through in lines like “but I’m not gonna cry today, because I got better things coming my way”. In this way, the duality of feelings that come with moving on in life is captured so well.
The instrumentals are mostly kept to a piano arrangement with some soft strings. These minimal instrumentals mean that most focus is placed on the lyrics. This suits the song well as the storytelling is so strong, and the slow piano makes the listener feel this bittersweet emotion all the more, as if the listener is in this home, hearing this song be played on a living room piano one last time before leaving the house. The instrumentals manage to carry the co-existence of a deep nostalgia combined with hope for a new step in life.
The song concludes the story “this time it’s for good, this time I have nothing to fear, oh this time it’s for good, this time I’ll have you near”, to leave the listener with a lingering warm, hopeful feeling. An instrumental outro with additional clarinet has the listener sit with these feelings for a moment, feeling both the hurt and hope.
As Brooks notes that they have been working on stuff behind the scenes, ‘grown’ is both a moving track in itself, and a promise for more. To have so much emotion and moving storytelling in a short song makes its impact last long beyond one listen to think about it more.
Written by: Marieke Weeda
Edited by: Mandy Huibregtsen
