Could Have Done Anything captures the human experience of being at one’s own mercy.
Could Have Done Anything by Toronto-based singer-songwriter Charlotte Cornfield is a succinct thirty-minute expression of human contradiction. A contending favourite from her discography, Cornfield’s new release is riddled with nuance presented with sweet simplicity and sounds like the natural progression in a series of deeply personal projects.
I slept on Charlotte Cornfield until more recently than I’d like to admit. Her EP In My Corner made its way into my sad, isolated life back in 2020 when it was released. Since the moment I heard the title track, specifically the lyrics, “I found you in a parking lot / Leaning on somebody’s car / You said don’t “worry I’m quitting” / I said “yeah, I believe you” / There’s nothing you can’t breathe through,” I’ve been borderline obsessed with her songwriting. Then Highs in the Minuses came out, and I listened to little else as 2021 blurred into 2022 over a particularly long winter. From that point on, I dove backwards into the rest of Cornfield’s discography from It’s Like That Here (2008) to The Shape of Your Name (2019), where I found distinctly charming songwriting in every era and now in the present day on Could Have Done Anything.
Cornfield’s fifth full-length album is consistent with other works in its simple beauty, yet with the maturity of a practiced artist who’s managed to manifest some kind of ease in the whirlwind. The album opens with “Gentle Like the Drugs,” which lyrically gives the impression of meandering through the city on a nice day: “Economy’s wild, but the sunsets in Phoenix never go out of style.” The observation of natural and civilized life unfurling together continues as the pace picks up on “You and Me”: “You’re sunkissed in your Subaru.” Although there is melancholy and remorse peppered throughout the album, the optimism is palpable: “I take a deep breath and count to three / If anyone can make it, it’s you and me”
“In From the Rain” alludes to a distant, harrowing love story that is nondescript but painfully relatable. She writes, “You came into my life like a gripping novel / And you brought me so much delight / And you brought me pain,” aptly recapping that kind of love that wasn’t meant to last. Back on her 2019 album, The Shape of Your Name, Cornfield sang, “I’m a balladeer,” and that fact is realized again on “The Magnetic Fields.” Slow and sentimental, “The Magnetic Fields” is a fairly simple arrangement with sauntering acoustic and electric guitar embellishments, bass, the occasional percussive hit, and soft vocal harmonies. The minimalism allows the main vocals to sit perfectly centred in the mix, giving this song the intimate feeling of hearing someone sing to themself.
A trademark of this album beyond the characteristic songwriting is the instrument tones. There’s a mix of softness, bounce, and twang that’s comfy for the brain and just really fun to listen to. Even as the lyrics so honestly convey the unfathomable amalgamation of life’s simple pleasures and greatest strifes, the instrumentation is at times playful, at others, angsty, yet always with an element of groundedness. “Cut and Dry” feels vaguely Beatles-esque to me but in the best way; like going along for a field trip somewhere you can’t place on a map but sense you’ve been to before.
Cornfield has that songwriter skill of fitting an essay into a lyrical phrase that makes the message potent while keeping the listening experience conversational. The story of “Nowhere” unfolds gradually in a verse: “Should I get a piano, should I get a new phone? / Should I try to get you alone for a minute or two / Before the guests arrive? / You made me feel more alive, less dead / Like there’s energy in my head / Like there’s somebody in my bed / And it’s you, and the room is yours too.” The drums and guitar are short and transitory, while an organ just drones underneath. There’s a gentle call and response between the main vocal and its echo, and I especially enjoy the guitar tone that comes in around the 1:17 mark when the chorus returns: “Nowhere to go, nothing to do, except lay here with you.”
Could Have Done Anything captures the human experience of being at one’s own mercy. There is wonder, disillusionment, heartbreak, hope, and repeat (which reminds me of another song from The Shape of Your Name, “Storm Clouds,” with the lyric cycle: “Storm clouds, elation, desire, mania, darkness, elation, desire, mania”). The obvious choice is to keep moving through it. While “I Dream Of” is a bittersweet song about taking remnants with you wherever you go, “Could Have Done Anything” is folkier with slide guitar, tambourine, and lyrics that go on and on about the smallest details of the every day that we tend to take for granted: “The corrugated edges of a cardboard box / The flotsam and the jetsam strewn across the dock.”
An outro if I ever heard one, “Walking with Rachel” is the nice bow to tie it all together, loosely, of course. It’s the closest anyone gets to a happy ending – acceptance for what has and what will come to pass, and the confidence to take it in stride: “And I’m grateful / That I’m / Calmer than I was / Smarter than I was / Stronger than I was / Older than I was / Less angry than I was / Less anxious than I was / More grounded than I was / Happier than I was.”
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