Don’t let someone find you until you find yourself

Love is a complex mystery, a rhythmic force – we may think we know it well, but we can’t; we never will. The closest we can come to understanding the invisible energies that attract us toward one another is in recognizing the conditions that create love, and those that inhibit it. Brooklyn synthpop duo Great Good Fine Ok try to make sense of love on their latest single “Find Yourself,” a hypnotic ballad with a passionate message: Don’t let someone find you until you find yourself.

I’ve been waiting half my life
just to be the one
to take you home tonight
we can make it, if we try,
but I want to wait until the time is right

“Find Yourself” – Great Good Fine Ok & Before You Exit

[youtube=https://youtu.be/V-YSeYf2qFs?t=0s]

Atwood Magazine is excited to feature “Find Yourself,” a mesmerizing collaboration between Great Good Fine Ok and Orlando pop/rock band Before You Exit. “I’ve been waiting half my life just to be the one to take you home tonight,” sings GGFO vocalist Jon Sandler in the song’s entrance. His vocals are immediate and direct, setting an intimate seen through his soft, impassioned inflection. His warm falsetto captures a fragile moment over bandmate Luke Moellman’s ethereal synth-piano production.

The song’s lyrics read like a painful plea to the one you love:

tell me what’s on your mind
I can’t get you off mine
are we over or meant to be
don’t need to know right now
timing will work it out
can’t let you make those mistakes with me

so don’t let someone find you
until you find yourself

Find Yourself - Great Good Fine Ok & Before You Ex — Find Yourself – Great Good Fine Ok & Before You Ex

There’s trouble in paradise; we can feel it from the start. Why else would Sandler so confidently and explicitly proclaim his love, but to provoke someone else into (hopefully) doing the same? Unfortunately, the one he loves doesn’t share that steadfast feeling: Something’s off.

“So many people struggle with, and ultimately discover, that you can’t truly be happy in a relationship with someone else, until you are happy with yourself,” Jon Sandler says of “Find Yourself.” As the song progresses, we find the narrator trying to figure out the root of his supposed-partner’s uncertainties. “Did I lose you? I can change,” sings Sandler in the second verse, waxing and waning between desperation and resoluteness. He knows what he wants, and he hopes his love feels the same way – but he refuses to be strung along.

did I lose you, I can change
but you’re free to turn
and walk the other way
I won’t bruise you, either way
I don’t know if there will be another day

This is our moment: You’re either in or out. Dance beats lend an infectious groove to “Find Yourself;” for all its heartbreak, the song is incredibly intoxicating. Cascading synths fill the soundscape with invigorating melodies, eventually culminating in the moral of the story:

don’t let someone find you
until you find yourself

Those words cut to the core; anyone who’s ever been told, “It’s not you; it’s me,” can see themselves in the narrator’s shoes. “We wanted the song to feel simple and relatable because it’s such a simple and relatable idea,” reflects Sandler. “We love how the chorus almost feels like a mantra, and is really fun and easy to sing. In the early stages of writing ‘Find Yourself,’ we spent many hours with Before You Exit excitedly singing it together. Something about the song just felt good.”

Find Yourself - GGFO / BYE art — Find Yourself – GGFO / BYE art

The profound beauty of “Find Yourself” lies in its ability to express love and suffering at the same time – of course, there are those who would also argue that love is suffering. Together, Great Good Fine Ok and Before You Exit offer an overwhelmingly cathartic exhale of tension, a knowing cry that reels from love’s pain, but also basks in its beauty. Few songs dare dive so far into something so complex, and even fewer artists bother offering any sort of lesson. “Find Yourself” does both, and it does them well. Bravo, GGFO and BYE; bravo.

So don’t let someone find you until you find yourself. It’s a pretty catchy mantra, and an even better chorus – the kind of chorus you might find yourself accidentally singing in the shower, or humming in bed at night. “Find Yourself” has all the trademarks of a great song, but to top it all off, it’s got depth of character: This song is about real life, real issues and real love – not the happily-ever-after stuff we fantasize about, but rather complex mystery that eludes our understanding. Catch Great Good Fine Ok on their North American headline tour this summer – dates below – and be sure to add “Find Yourself” to your summer Spotify playlists.

This song hurts in all the right ways.