Carla Geneve

Tuesday, December 22, 2020. Three days till Christmas ya’ll. We’ve been listening all week to Perth musician, Carla Geneve’s new music. Her debut album is coming out in 2021, and in the meantime she’s released two stellar singles, "I Hate You (For Making Me Not Want to Leave the City)” and “The Right Reasons”.

I listened to the “The Right Reasons” for the first time during a particularly rough week in my life. First, let me say that music, like all forms of art, means something different to each person. The artist sings their own story, but at the end of the day, you hear what you want and you connect the lyrics to your own experiences. For me, the song was a nice moment to reflect on my fraught relationship with my parents. They’re getting a divorce and each is deeply unhappy and depressed right now. For months, my brothers and I have continuously tried to bring their spirits up — with words, acts of encouragement, love — but nothing seems to work. It’s a slow process. So when Carla sings her chorus, “It's not me, it's not you//Sometimes we all do the wrong thing//For the right reasons//I've been going through the seasons”… well I can put myself in her shoes. To me, she’s saying some days are good and others bad, you just have “to go through the seasons.” It’s an honest and personal depiction of those who struggle with mental health. Everyone’s trying to do the right thing, but the happy ending doesn’t always arrive on time; and that’s nobody’s fault.

In an interview for NME magazine, the artist explains more fully the story behind “The Right Reasons”:

It took me a long time to write ‘The Right Reasons’, I think I probably wrote six or seven entirely different versions. Even though so much art is inspired and created in a cathartic way on the topic of mental illness, it’s still a difficult thing to write about, and to share about. I wanted to shine a bright light on some of my darkest experiences because it makes sense to me that radical vulnerability could be the first step to radical self-acceptance. And without self-acceptance, I feel it’s very difficult to build profound and meaningful connections with those around you.