Themes of confusion and self-doubt pop up across the album, including on single “Living with It.” Cornfield’s protagonist desperately tries to convince herself that she’s dealing with a breakup better than her ex. However, all the evidence piles up to the contrary. Cornfield’s own voice outs the truth, deftly shifting from plaintive as her character details the particulars of the split to still smitten as she describes him throughout the process (“That half-smile and that glow in you”). The isolating strums and piano of the verses give way to a rolling wave of drum and synth on the choruses as she goes back and forth in her mind, confused as to whether it’s denial, fear, or pain fueling her indecision. Indie royalty Leslie Feist, whom Cornfield met in a group for mothers who are musicians, adds a layer of harmonies that almost feels like an inner dialogue as the character wrestles with her emotions. In the end, she wonders if he’s kept her phone number, looking for a bit of comfort in knowing this hasn’t been easy for him either.
Those familiar with Cornfield won’t be surprised that she returns to the stages, lofts, and bars of the Toronto music scene as a setting for several of her songs. It’s a world she knows and clearly finds ripe with characters and inspiration. The country-tinged “Lost Leader” catches up with a fallen frontman trapped in a lifestyle that once celebrated him but now drains him and holds him back. In the final stanza, Cornfield shifts POV to one of his diehard fans, disenchanted by the pathetic figure her hero’s been reduced to since going it alone. “Squiddd,” on the other hand, plays out like a meet-cute ripped from the pages of the missed connections section. Guitars glisten and Cornfield’s voice nearly cracks as her protagonist timidly recalls falling for a singer in a band named Squiddd “with three d’s.” She ducks out without meeting him that night, a single lyric from one of their songs (“I want to share files with you”) racing through her brain and burning like a vigil candle. You’ll have to listen for yourself to find out if serendipity intervenes on behalf of a shy heart.
Cornfield reserves her two most stunning bits of storytelling for the end of Hurts Like Hell. The melancholy sets in early on the creeping “Kitchen,” a tale of gushing astonishment at just how “natural, grounded and factual, passionate and actual” love can strike, Cornfield gently folding in those words like whipped egg whites into a batter. The fairytale will, of course, get real soon enough, but we’re happy to spend as much time as possible in lines like “On a vision board where you became my lover / Stick figures held hands lounging on a beach.” Reality sets in on the subsequent “Long Game,” a gently unfolding song all about the painful lessons that love inevitably teaches us. We spend the first half of the song in a montage of gigs, shitty apartments, and early a.m. hangs as two people entwine before our eyes. And then Cornfield hits us with the most devastating line of the album: “And coming out of it unscathed was impossible / I changed, wasn’t mystified in the same ways anymore.” While Cornfield may portray love at times as a jagged, little pill to swallow, a song like “Long Game” also reminds us that we’re resilient enough to persevere and do better next time—that love’s inherently a painful game of trial and error.
The aforementioned opening and closing tracks come across more like fragments than realized songs, but they do enough in establishing the perspective Cornfield brings to these stories. The only tune that truly fails to resonate is “Lucky,” the band’s only attempt at an all-out rocker. The short, clumsy burst, a respite from, as the singer puts it, “the crushing weight of everything right now,” crashes the storytime vibe that Hurts Like Hell establishes early on. It’s by no means a clunker, just musically out of place. It also feels unnecessary when Cornfield can easily break up any monotony simply through the range of emotions she can channel vocally. A song like “Number” feels just as upbeat as Cornfield, with some simple harmonies from Christian Lee Hutson, warmly wonders about a lost connection when snow on her doorstep triggers a memory. It’s truly remarkable the feelings she can extract from such a mundane detail.
Songwriter Bill Callahan put out a powerful record in February, My Days of 58, all about pushing 60 and still figuring out the best version of himself. It’s not a perspective you hear all that often in music. Similarly, Charlotte Cornfield, rather than trying to cling to youth, examines those bewildering days from her present as a mother, partner, and songwriter in her late thirties. The exhilaration, confusion, and growing pains are no less compelling from that distance on Hurts Like Hell, with the songwriter holding the advantage of no doubt having experienced much of it herself. [Merge]
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