Trouble

The arrangement here is deceptively intimate — acoustic guitar, a pocket of room reverb, and what sounds like a band playing just below a whisper. Joy Crookes constructs the song like a confession made in low light, her voice carrying that particular combination of tenderness and exasperation that characterizes relationships where affection and frustration have become inseparable. There's a jazz-inflected swing to the rhythm that keeps it from ever feeling heavy, even as the lyrical content circles something genuinely painful — the way certain people become a recurring problem in your life precisely because you can't stop wanting them near. Crookes doesn't moralize or resolve the tension; she sits inside it, which is what makes the song feel so honest. The production opens up slightly in the chorus with layered backing vocals that create warmth rather than bigness. It's the kind of song that soundtracks the walk home after you've seen someone you swore you were over, the feelings rearranging themselves before you've even reached your front door.