Somebody’s Child’s Cian Godfrey dives deep into identity, legacy, and the passage of time on his spirited sophomore album ‘When Youth Fades Away’ – a boldly defiant and emotionally charged record of reckoning, reinvention, and cathartic release.
“Porcelain (Losing All My Patience)” – Somebody’s Child
For Cian Godfrey, the past few years have been a time of reckoning, reinvention, and release.
The Irish singer/songwriter and frontman of Somebody’s Child returns with a sophomore album that doesn’t just expand on his band’s foundations – it breaks them apart to start anew. Written in the shadow of a global pandemic and recorded in a whirlwind creative sprint, When Youth Fades Away captures a raw, unfiltered spirit of self-exploration and emotional evolution.
It’s the sound of a band growing into themselves and, in the process, shedding whatever pretense remained from the expectations of a “debut.”
I have found the very nature of myself
Now I’m 29, I think about my health
I don’t feel as much
as time goes on and on
When did you last stop to listen?
They just played your favourite song
Now I’m into porcelain
Oh where did it all go?
And soon I’ll be divorced,
and I’ll watch as you grow old
Cus I’m losing all my patience
I’m losing all my patience
I’m losing all my patience
Oh holding onto youth
– “Porcelain (Losing All My Patience),” Somebody’s Child
Released March 28, 2025 via Frenchkiss Records, When Youth Fades Away is a cinematic and spirited fever dream. The follow-up to Somebody’s Child’s acclaimed self-titled debut album – itself praised for its “raw passion and feverish energy” – finds Godfrey and his band channeling nostalgia, disillusionment, passion, and purpose into a record that hits hard and lingers long after its final notes fade.
From rave-ready rhythms to jagged rock edges and emotionally vulnerable songwriting, this album is a portrait of growing pains and personal clarity – of youth slipping through your fingers and the lessons left in its wake.
“This record actually started with the title, before anything else,” Godfrey tells Atwood Magazine. “It came out of the frustration of being unable to hold on to the time that was slipping through my fingers. Weeks were turning into years, and I wanted to express that in some way. I knew straight away when I stumbled upon it.”
That sense of urgency and impermanence became a guiding force throughout the album’s creation. When Youth Fades Away was conceived in the aftermath of lockdowns, forged through creative uncertainty, and ultimately brought to life in a studio thousands of miles from home.
“We wrote this in the wake of COVID, up until March of ’24,” Godfrey shares. “It was only when we knew where and when we would be recording it, did the sound of the record really reveal itself. We went to Connecticut in May, and recorded with Peter Katis and Kurt, and it was a swell time. We made it as though it is our last. In more ways than one, it felt as though it was meant to be.”
And I wanted to feel
I wanted to be real
You’ve taken over
The space left in my head
And I told you I was wrong
You said that I’m just young
And I’ll make it on my own
‘Cause last night I
I held your hand
I followed your
Your masterplan
I felt all I had left was
You and your perfume
Left on my bed
The timelines between albums may have blurred, but the growth between them is unmistakable.
While Somebody’s Child’s self-titled debut embraced a deliberately “introductory” identity, Godfrey approached this second LP with greater freedom, intention, and a sense of self-assurance.
“For our debut, because the record took so long to come out, we kind of wanted it to sound like a debut, even if a lot of what we were making at the time was more evolved than that,” he explains. “So although it was doing the songs justice, it was also maybe a little regressive to who we were as musicians at that point. For that reason, we took two steps forward with this, so in many ways, it’s our third record in my head.”
That evolution didn’t come easy. Godfrey is candid about the band’s creative growing pains, and the moments of doubt that came with trying to carve out something true.
“We struggled in the beginning,” he recalls. “We felt we didn’t sound enough like ourselves, battling to be new and original. Eventually we shut out the noise and stopped listening to everything and everyone. We closed ourselves off and only listened to about five artists we knew we could trust not to lead us in the wrong direction. In the end it was an extremely cathartic experience where we fell upon ourselves, hiding in plain sight.”
Godfrey candidly distills When Youth Fades Away into three potent words: Rave. Rock. Rebel. It’s a succinct, yet striking encapsulation of a record that pulses with kinetic energy, emotional turbulence, and unfiltered authenticity.
Across its twelve tracks, When Youth Fades Away swings between visceral immediacy and quiet introspection, with standout moments scattered throughout its immersive runtime. From the explosive opener “The Kid” to the achingly tender “Irish Goodbye,” the album deftly balances raw, post-punk urgency with cinematic storytelling.
The title track, “When Youth Fades Away,” sits at the heart of the album like a not-so-quiet reckoning. Dreamlike and abstract, it moves in soft, cinematic waves of memory and mood, blurring the line between nostalgia and acceptance. Lyrically, Godfrey drifts from scene to scene without resolution — not unlike a fading dream — leaving behind not clarity, but feeling. It’s a poignant meditation on what we lose with time, and what we carry forward in its place.
“This is a nod to imagery from my youth,” he says. “Lyrically it moves like a dream, from scene to scene without any obvious points except what’s left at the end when you wake up — a feeling.”
I feel it in my head
Myself of old ain’t coming back
I’m sad of all the gladness,
hard to say I’ll be alright
When youth fades away I swear
I’m lost in the power of it all
I just want to be myself,
for a day…
– “When Youth Fades Away,” Somebody’s Child
Further highlights include the wistful and heartfelt “Last Night I Held Your Hand,” which captures the fading embers of young love; the dynamic and driving “Porcelain (Losing All My Patience),” whose fusion of monotone verse and falsetto chorus speaks to the tension at the heart of aging and intimacy; and the breathtaking finale “Time of My Life,” which closes the record with bittersweet reflection and a sense of earned release.
“The idea was to write an album closer, something that I previously would have thought was a terrible idea going in – to have parameters set like that – but I think at that point we had loosened up so much and it felt like a shot at the dark anyways,” Godfrey explains. “I remember the feeling half an hour later when it was written, looking at the time and wondering how it wasn’t the middle of the night. It was 9 PM. I was completely lost in it. It was surreal.”
Atwood Magazine’s Danielle Holian previously praised “Time of My Life” for its minimalist, two-chord structure – an approach that allows the lyrics and emotions to clearly shine through. “The simplicity of the chords gives the song a reflective quality, as if every note is a heartbeat counting down the moments we often take for granted,” she writes.
When asked about his own favorite lyrics and tracks, Godfrey points to the same song as his emotional anchor:
“I love ‘New Orleans’ and ‘Time of My Life,’” he smiles. “The former because it highlights the singularity of time, where words aren’t repeated, and there is no chorus, and the latter because of how personal it is to me. It encapsulates my life until now, as if flashing before me. It was an important song for me to take stock of where I am at this point.”
That emotional resonance is part of what makes “Time of My Life” a clear personal highlight. “It also doesn’t really have a chorus, and only two chords,” he adds, “which we’ve never been able to achieve effectively before, and we managed to with one song.”
A promise, a moment
To sit down, by the table with the view
Might have took the wrong direction
Once or twice along the way, I guess it’s true
You know I’ve been feeling down
Oh when did it all happen to me now?
You know I’ve been missing you
But time keeps moving faster all the while
That sense of catharsis, of embracing life’s ephemerality and making peace with its messiness, is what ultimately defines When Youth Fades Away.
It’s a record of reckoning and release; a moment of pause amid the chaos, where Somebody’s Child take stock of who they are and where they’ve been, all while leaving space for what’s still to come.
“I wouldn’t like to offer any advice, but hopefully this album can offer some comfort for the realists out there, trying to stay positive, amid uncertainty,” Godfrey shares. “What I’ve learned personally is a lesson of acceptance, and gratitude. That’s what I’m trying to improve on personally.”
When Youth Fades Away may not have all the answers, but that’s never what it set out to offer. Instead, Somebody’s Child leaves us with something far more lasting: A reminder to sit with the questions, to find meaning in the in-between, and to hold tight to the fleeting moments before they slip through our fingers.
Experience the full record via our below stream, and peek inside Somebody’s Child’s When Youth Fades Away with Atwood Magazine as Cian Godfrey takes us track-by-track through the music and lyrics of his sophomore album!
Love, death and self-expression
It’s hard to see how
these hands are my own
Time keeps getting even faster
Best off trying not to count
Life is better when romantic
Try to take those stabilisers off
‘Cause I am the life of the kid
Fame, money and fortune
Don’t add up to your happiness at all
There’s nothing higher than the feeling
Of how it sits in you
Cus life is better when
Shared with someone else I swear
– “The Kid,” Somebody’s Child
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‘When Youth Fades Away’ – Somebody’s Child
:: Inside When Youth Fades Away ::
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The Kid
This was the last song we wrote for the album. It was a last grasp at breaking form, and in the back of our minds we knew it was an intro track. The goal was to encapsulate all of the themes on the album, musically and lyrically. It developed into something we have never done before, and is perhaps most illustrative of the next step for us, creatively.
Last Night I Held Your Hand
This was the first song written for the album. We rented a cabin in west Wales for 10 days at the start of our last album campaign, which ultimately served as the palette upon which we drew from for the remainder of the writing. It is perhaps the youngest brother in the family of songs on the album, encapsulating a young romance, acknowledging and closing out any residual themes from the first album.
Porcelain (Losing All My Patience)
To me this song encapsulates the album the most. Sonically it lives in a world that was inspired by early electronic music (Kraftwerk, Devo) but the monotone vocals in the verse and falsetto in the chorus became something we chased from this point onwards. It is ultimately about relationships as we get older, and how time can get the better of us.
When Youth Fades Away
Following on from Porcelain, this is a nod to imagery from my youth, while developing upon those same sonic themes. Lyrically it moves like a dream, from scene to scene without any obvious points except what’s left at the end when you wake up, a feeling.
New Orleans
This was meant to be finished as a song, but I kind of loved the brevity of it. Now it’s more of an interlude, tapping into that feeling of wanting to just book a flight and never come back.
Wall St
This was the second song written for the album. It encompasses a lot of the tone of voice used throughout the album. It’s tongue in cheek, while being quite on the nose at the same time. This was the balance I tried to strike. I never used humour before in music, this was my introduction to it.
My Mind Is on Fire
I guess the lyrics in this are the ones most true to how I feel about growing older. My mind constantly reminds me of my age, and what I’ve done, or not done at this point in life. My mind is on fire expresses my constant angst and gripes with the relationship between me and my age.
Irish Goodbye
I love the lyrics in this song. It’s also the most stripped back sonically, which gives a nice breath in the album. It is ultimately a note to my younger self, trying to tell him to stop being such a brat, while acknowledging that at any point in life you feel like you’re wiser than before, and empathizing with the naivety of youth.
Waterside
The dark horse on the album. It’s just a gorgeous, yet dark story of losing someone you love. It’s the only song on the album that actually touches on the darkness of death, albeit the coming-to-terms-with-which arguably is the underlying theme of the album.
Time of My Life
We’ve always wanted to write a 2-chord song, and this finally came out without force. Another one that was written with an idea; ‘let’s close out the album’. Part fiction, part reality, this summarises my life until this point. It was an extremely cathartic song to write. We were about to give up on writing that day, and we gave it one last go. Less than an hour later, we had a full song with more lyrics than we’ve ever had. I remember the feeling so well. I thought we’d been at it for 6 hours. Pure elation. It’s about the flashing of life before your eyes, ending in a feeling of resolve, leaving legacy through songs and accepting fate.
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