Premiere: Bestfriend’s Beautifully Warm & Wistful Summer Song, “Someplace Else”

An achingly vulnerable and intimate outpouring of emotionally stirring indie pop, Bestfriend’s “Someplace Else” is a catchy, cathartic daydream come to life in song.

Stream: “Someplace Else” – Bestfriend

Change can be positive and still sad.

Even as we embark on a new beginning full of excitement and possibility, the fresh allure of the unknown and so much more, there’s still something bittersweet about closing the door on a chapter of our lives; on moving on from the person we used to be and saying goodbye to a piece of our world. Bestfriend’s new single captures the mixed emotions of life’s transitions with stunning warmth and expressive, compelling candor: An achingly vulnerable and intimate outpouring of emotionally stirring indie pop, “Someplace Else” is a catchy daydream come to life in song.

The streetcar drivers on the line beside my house are really loud
“In their defense,” you say, “They just need to let it all out”
You stop me droning on and on again about something I can’t control
Or circumvent

Hold on while I document all the strange ideas you have
I’d write ‘em in a notebook, but my handwriting’s pretty bad
I wish you could narrate every place I’ll ever go
If only to see it all like you do

Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “Someplace Else,” Bestfriend’s first single of 2022 and the lead single off their forthcoming sophomore EP, places i’ve left (due out this summer). The aptly titled follow-up to October 2021’s unapologetically raw debut EP places i’ve lived promises to unearth even more heart-on-sleeve passion, poetry, and visceral wonder from Bestfriend: Formed in 2018, the indie pop / bedroom pop duo of Stacy Kim and Kaelan Geoffrey have made a name for themselves through their delicate, emotionally charged music that is equal parts catchy and cathartic, confessional and reflective. They describe the music they’re currently making as “a series of letters… dedicated to the people and places of the young adult lives [they are] growing out of.”

“Someplace Else” is an especially wistful reckoning from the duo: A heartfelt, diary-like upheaval of changing lanes in real time.

A tender tempest of a song, it rises softly with the kind of inner tension whose presence is felt, but not necessarily heard. “Hold on while I document all the strange ideas you have, I’d write ‘em in a notebook, but my handwriting’s pretty bad,” Stacy Kim sings, attempting to capture meaningful snapshots of life in the moment. The pair find their emotional peak in an exceptionally charming, deeply intimate chorus:

You’ve got me all figured out
I couldn’t help myself
Seeing us someplace else
In sundresses so saccharine
With you laying in the grass behind
The baseball diamond and me with my hands in the clouds
We’d have it figured all out

Before we embark on our big life changes, we so often look back at how we got to the present place in time – to this space, physical and emotional, literal and metaphorical, in our lives. “Someplace Else” channels that highlight reel; it’s a nostalgic walk, or rather a run, down memory lane, soaking in the highlights and trying to bask in the sweetness of familiarity before the colors fade and the joyous up-close reverie becomes a distant memory: A faded shell of a life lived long ago. It’s beautifully romantic, and touchingly so.

“‘Someplace Else’ is a song about crushes and daydreaming, really,” Bestfriend tell Atwood Magazine. “It’s about thinking back fondly on time you spent with someone and fantasizing about spending it again. It’s about journaling on a train. It’s about puppy love and a summer romance begging to be more. Feeling understood by someone in a way that feels special you don’t recognize. It’s optimistic and positive and genuinely happy.”

“With ‘Someplace Else’, we wanted to start with a positive foot forward,” the pair explain. “This second installment of our places series is more about feeling lost in where we want to go from here, as opposed to the pure exploration of melancholy nostalgia we entertained on EP 1, so there’s a fair bit of uncertainty. ‘Someplace Else’ seemed like the natural first choice, especially feeling so heavily of summer. Always nice to sneak in a summer song at the winter/spring border; a little reminder there’s something to look forward to.”

Can you meet me in every place I’ve ever lived like it’s the first time?
You can walk me down the street like I’ve never been there once my whole life
And you can point out all the pretty parts of the buildings I’d never noticed
I’ll meet you there in five

You’ve got me all figured out
I couldn’t help myself
Seeing us someplace else
In sundresses so saccharine
With you laying in the grass behind
The baseball diamond and me with my hands in the clouds
We’d have it figured all out

Life isn’t a straight line, and that’s what makes it as wonderful as it is scary, as thrilling as it is chilling. It’ll all change in an instant, and when that happens, it’s sure to shock your senses. Sometimes we’ll be in the driver’s seat and controlling the narrative, and other times we may be at the whims of others or fate itself. Still, we’ll always be building upon our individual histories – and we’ll always have our pasts to fall back on, whether as a bedrock for the present or as life lessons and important stories. We are each works in progress, and what ultimately makes “Someplace Else” such a heartwarming song is that Bestfriend call attention to this fact – that while our stories are forever in motion, sometimes life will slow down long enough for us to truly savor the moment, soak in our joy, our love, feelings of fulfillment and connection, belonging and accomplishment, and beyond. Those spaces are so fleeting, but here they are forever enshrined in song.

Stream Bestfriend’s “Someplace Else” exclusively on Atwood Magazine.

So I guess we’re getting older
Or whatever the hell they say
When we want an answer to our problems
We’re not young enough to explain
But it feels a little lighter
And we spin a little slower just like gravity
Is giving us a break

You’ve got me all figured out
I couldn’t help myself
Seeing us someplace else
Someplace else

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Stream: “Someplace Else” – Bestfriend

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