Caroline Romano is taking honesty to a new level in her new single “Used by You.” Following in the footsteps of her recent releases, this song, which Caroline calls “brutal,” is a sad, angry song about “the side effects of unrequited admitation.”
Over the last few months, Caroline has been playing with heavy riffs, passive-aggressive vocals, and tongue-in-cheek lyrics. We asked Caroline about the shift from poetics and more melancholy story-telling. “I think the delivery of the things I’ve been writing after the [A Brief Epic] EP is really just the evolution of a lot of those emotions,” she said. “With grief comes anger, and A Brief Epic was really just a eulogy for a time and relationship in my life that isn’t around anymore. The aftermath of that is less tragic, but also a bit stronger and a bit grittier.”
This grit manifests in lines like “tell her I said ‘hi,'” and in “Used by You,” the biting question, “Are we still having fun?” For Caroline, unrequited love isn’t a Greek tragedy anymore. Instead, it feels more like 90s heartbreak. This chapter of Caroline Romano’s music is all about anthems inpired by “life, almost-love, and being young and feeling catastrophic.”
“I had the line ‘I’d rather be used by you than you be something I lose’ and part of the first verse written a few days prior to going into a session with my friends Sam Varga and Caleb Oczkowski,” Caroline said of the creation of the “Used by You.” “I wanted the song to feel cold and heavy, and both of these guys write rock songs so incredibly well, so I knew I wanted to bring the idea to them. The entire song was written in a couple of hours and it was just a very cathartic and therapeutic experience to create it. I still think my favorite moment in the song is the first verse. It says a lot in a little amount of time, and it truly is a brutal start to the song.”
“Used by You” fits right in with Caroline’s current sonic inspirations, Julia Wolf, Sara Kays, Lizzy Mcalpine, Lorde, and Sleep Token, and we’re excited to see what’s next in her current project. We’ve known Caroline the daydreamer, the poet, and now, she’s interpreting life and music through a new lense.
“Used by You” is streaming now. This spring, she will also be heading on tour with Smallpools and Grayscale for their West Coast dates. Tickets for all dates are on sale now: https://carolineromano.com/tour.
