The Mancunian songstress reminisces about her teen years in the reflective new track.

Phoebe Green has a particular talent for jabbing me right where it hurts with her music. With a combination of haunting melodies and poignant lyrics, she’s capable of taking a simple concept and turning it into something complex and visceral. Her new single So Grown Up is the latest example of this. This is a song that, in Phoebe’s words, “feels like it’s straight out of a ‘90s coming-of-age film.” Primarily about nostalgia, it’s shown through the lens of her relationship with her best friend. 

The song starts by recalling experiences that many will associate with their youth, though with a somewhat bittersweet twist. While beginning the song with lines like: “What happened to the boys we fucked with at school?” and “What happened to the men we lost our virginity to?” may appear harmless upon one’s first listen, there’s a sad implication behind it. In her hierarchy of teenage memories, those involving men somehow rank at the top. Speaking on this, Phoebe explains: “Our self-worth and our identity was so heavily warped by the male gaze, and it was overwhelming and almost uncomfortable to come to that realisation.” 

As the song progresses, we are granted lyrics that convey her feelings on nostalgia with an eloquence that’s difficult to achieve without verging on cliché, particularly when discussing such a universal topic. Stand out lines include: “The older we get, the younger we seemed”, which appears to be a comment on how young people often aspire to seem older and more mature, an instinct that typically fades when they actually grow up. It’s a sad kind of paradox — a “grass is always greener” type phenomenon that evokes the idea of wasted youth. Towards the end of the track, we see her mourning the naivety that is shed with maturity, shown within lyrics such as, “Ending phone calls with ‘Look after yourself.’” Behind these lines is a sensation many in the early stages of adulthood will relate to—a longing for ignorance, simplicity and a lack of responsibility.

While this new release can certainly be enjoyed by anyone, it may be particularly enjoyable for fans of Phoebe’s older music, due to its many parallels with the song Isobel. Released in 2016 as the last song on her debut album 2:00 AM, Isobel is a song written about Phoebe’s best friend of the same name. So Grown Up recalls this track by repeating the line “Don’t forget about me”, which acts as Isobel’s refrain. Aside from other lyrical parallels, the most notable tie between the two songs can be found in the music video, directed by Vasilia Forbes, which features Isobel herself. The video sees the pair in Blackpool, where they went to school together. It’s clear from the context that So Grown Up, like Isobel, was written with her childhood friend at the forefront.

The beauty of this new release is that the comparison to Isobel explicitly shows the development of Phoebe’s sound. Although her debut album was beautiful and melancholic in all the right ways, the upbeat nature of her recent releases makes them more accessible and suitable for live performance. On a topical note, So Grown Up demonstrates the evolution of her music, which has, in a sense, grown up with her.