If Only

Built around a sighing chord progression and layered with soft, warm textures, "If Only" plants itself firmly in the territory of retrospective longing—the subjunctive mood of a relationship examined from a distance, turned over for clues that may not actually be there. O'Connor's writing here is precise about the vagueness of regret: the inability to locate exactly what went wrong even as you feel certain that something did. The production from his "Apricot Princess" era carries a golden-hour quality—late-afternoon light filtered through bedroom windows, summer slightly turned toward something ending. His voice navigates between confidence and fragility without ever overclaiming; he sounds genuinely uncertain rather than performing uncertainty for effect. The song connects to a long tradition of British indie folk introspection while remaining distinctly contemporary, tied to a lo-fi bedroom pop moment that valued emotional honesty over production polish. It rewards headphone listening, especially when you're prone to counterfactual thinking—running alternate timelines, wondering what different choices at a specific moment might have made possible.