For something completely different – I talk 'Forget Me' by Lewis Capaldi

A quick break from my usual content of video games and anime to talk about Lewis Capaldi. A while ago on Twitter, and something I do a couple of times a year is to check out and comment on the current Billboard Top 100 to see what's going on with modern popular music. I've heard a couple of songs from Capaldi in the past and I was, to say the least, not impressed.

This first bit is going to be a bit on the harsh side but bear with me. Capaldi always sounds like he's struggling to sing no matter the song he is on. I can't argue from a technical perspective because that's out of my expertise, but as a casual listener, he is just not a very good singer. He also has a history of some awkward and clunky lyrics. I am unsure if he is the one writing his songs or not, but it always kind of threw me off just how big his first song got.

That said, despite some pretty glaring issues as an artist Capaldi has something that is missing from a lot of other music I've been hearing come from the pop charts the last couple of years, he sounds both like actually cares and he sounds genuine. Now, I obviously don't know if either of those things is true or not, but what matters is it comes across in his music. It's going to be an odd comparison, but it's very similar to Juiceworld. The music may be entirely unrelated, but everything I said above I feel is why that guy managed to get such a devoted audience, despite also just not being very good. Sometimes there can be something to your music that helps elevate it beyond the problems. Mind you, in the case of both I still never got into the music itself, but I get it.

At least I didn't get into them until this song. Lewis Capaldi I don't feel has gotten the devoted fan base that Juiceworld did, despite me saying I feel there is a similar appeal, and I think that plays into how I feel about this song. I may be wrong, but I look at this song in a similar vein to CCR's 'Have you Ever Seen the Rain?', where on the surface the song is about one thing, but under the surface it's about something different.

Forget Me is a song about a guy after a breakup who still hasn't entirely moved on even two years later. But it's not that he wants to rekindle the flame, though that may be true, he's also not ready for her to move on. There is this fear that seems to exist that he just wasn't enough of a presence in the relationship to leave a lasting impression like he was just another guy she dated for a while, while she meant so much more to him. Without getting into what I feel is the other meaning behind the song, this is the best-written song from him I've heard. It's not nearly as clunky feeling as his other tracks, but at the same time, it feels just as genuine and sincere.

What else I think the song is about is I feel Capaldi feels this way about his career. While he got a lot of buzz around that first song, it pretty quickly faded from the discourse. And his other music, while hits, just weren't getting the number of people talking. And as I mentioned above, I feel like Capaldi cares about leaving behind some kind of legacy. In the history of pop, there are a lot of artists who have notched multiple hits that no one remembers, but there are also people who are generally regarded as horrible, had a few number-one hits, and then went away. Rather than a long and technically successful career that doesn't leave a strong impression, I think Capaldi would rather be Vanilla Ice. He wants to know he mattered.

For me, that pushes this song over the edge and makes it great, even if I'm simply reading too much into it.