Sunday Sounds: November 1, 2020, “Changes”
Samantha Colleran, November 2020
Happy first day of November, readers! As I’ve stated on here a few times before, I’m not a country girl. However, when Harry writes a song for a country artist, I’m obligated to listen to it because even if he’s not singing a song he wrote, I need to read and listen to the lyrics. It’s a way for me to pick his brain without actually knowing him, I love the stories he tells in his music and any chance I have to learn just a little bit more about him, I take.
On Friday in between listening to Ariana Grande’s recent album Positions and new Christmas songs from Liam Payne featuring Tik Tok star Dixie D’Amelio and the Jonas Brothers, I found myself listening to a song from country artist Cam called “Changes”, a new track off of her recently released album titled The Otherside. Upon some brief research I learned that Cam doesn’t often take songs from other artists, but for this album she branched out a little more and collaborated with artists such as Sam Smith, and of course Harry Styles for today’s Sunday Sounds selection. She said she “trust[ed] Harry [Styles]’s writing”, and that she was surprised to find herself relating to his lyrics.
“It’s about feeling like you’ve outgrown where you’re from, and you don’t really want to admit that. It’s kind of an uncomfortable thing to say, but I love when things are uncomfortable. That means it’s important,” Cam said in an interview with Apple Music. The instrumentation is simple and allows you to focus on how strong the lyrical content is. Cam’s voice is soft yet powerful, you can feel the emotion as she sings about a hometown she doesn’t feel connected to anymore. The imagery in the first verse is one of my favorite parts of the whole song, you can see the country road and the winding river described.
It’s nostalgic, it talks about the people in our narrator’s (whether you think of it as Cam, who is singing, or Harry as our songwriter) hometown who could be falling in love for the first time, or drinking with their friends for the first time and thinking that things won’t ever change, that they’re invincible in the moment they’re living in. Except things do change; they grow up and move on with their life, they have babies, they stay in said hometown and live their lives how they were meant to. It’s reminiscent of the good times, but our protagonist also realizes that they’re outgrowing what they’ve become used to, and perhaps it’s time to move on and look for a different path. It’s beautiful, I’m surprised by how much I enjoyed Cam’s voice on this track and I love the lyrics to pieces!
You can listen to the “Changes” below, and be sure to listen for Harry whistling towards the end of the song, which was kept from the original demo! Let me know your thoughts on this song in the comments!
Her voice is so clear and strong! Until reading this I had never heard of her. Thanks again for introducing me to someone new.
so so happy you’re listening to cam! my favorite song by her is Diane :)) love this sunday sounds! keep up the great work xoxo
You sent me that song when we were doing our quarantine playlists! Thank you Gracie💓💞