Thinking about...Bewitched by Laufey: Love through Rose-Coloured Glasses

This month, I was looking for new music to listen to and write about and my YouTube Music algorithm led me to Laufey! I’d heard of some of her songs but never gotten down to actually listening to them – but the few I discovered off her album ‘Bewitched’ had me obsessed and I wanted to share my thoughts!

The album sounds romantic to the point of being surreal, sublime and idealistic – portraying love through rose-coloured glasses. It takes me back to a fairytale-style idea of love that makes you feel giddy when you listen to it! Laufey manages to infuse this quality into all her songs – even those that describe heartbreak or the more painful parts of love. In a way, by going back to old-school, fairytale ideas of love, Laufey breaks the conventions of today's love songs in two ways. 

Firstly, Laufey’s music is very much inspired by jazz. It wasn’t something I’d typically listened to much before discovering her, but I found her style really enjoyable! Much like I experienced it, people often say that Laufey’s music has made jazz more enjoyable and accessible to people who more commonly listen to pop or other genres. Her music is very different to the current popular sound – she breaks the conventions of today’s popular music by using jazz techniques and also sometimes classical instruments, vocals and tones in her music. In doing so she widened the audience that typically listens to her and has also allowed people to discover the jazz music that inspires her style.

Secondly, Laufey describes love in its most idealized form: as a magical, spellbinding, beautiful fairytale. People often say that in this age love has been corrupted by short-form media and apps. In a world where people have distanced from one another, where it’s difficult to form real, deep connections, people often reject love or feel scared of it, as Laufey does in the album’s opening track, ‘Dreamer.’ Amongst the increasing individualism and non-committal love common to today’s youth, Laufey brings us back to the ideal of love, to classical, old-school descriptions of it that are the most romantic, and shows us what it could – and in some ways, what it should – feel like to love. Her music and takes on love are refreshing in the information age where every connection is a click, a swipe or a tap – she shows us the slow magic that should truly accompany loving someone, even yourself! 

1. Dreamer

‘Dreamer’ is very much my favourite track on this album! It introduces us to Laufey’s bewitching journey with love with a very enchanting sound. Some of the harmonies reminded me of old Disney movie soundtracks – particularly the old ‘Cinderella’ soundtrack. It’s thus very interesting how this song completely subverts the connotations of this magical sound by rejecting romantic love but still dreaming of a ‘perfect’ future, where Laufey sings “no boy’s gonna kill the dreamer in me.” Its bouncy, swung rhythms are very dancey, creating the feeling of just dancing around your house humming as you enjoy your own company. 

The reason I love this song is that I very much relate to it as someone on the asexual/aromantic spectrum! I feel like it’s about finally rejecting the romance that you’re told is so important to life for years and years – “I’ve given up, I’m throwing in my hat/I can’t take another lifeless little chat.” You’ve tried to see for yourself what the so-called magic of romance is – “I’ve made my rounds, kissed some mouths” – but you can’t seem to find it and realise it’s just not for you – “I’d rather be alone at tea,” “trust me, I don’t want a single soul around.” However, even as Laufey rejects (romantic) love, believing she doesn’t want to be hurt by its repercussions, she believes she can continue to dream of a love-filled, fairytale-like life – “no boy’s gonna kill the dreamer in me.” Similarly, arospecs can still dream of a love-filled life even if they don’t want to engage in romance! They can still be ‘lovers’ and feel intense love or emotion towards people they care about and dream of a life cherishing them forever. 

I also love how the song recognises the stigmatisation that accompanies rejecting romance or not relating to it: “some might call me mad/the worst this town has had,” where aro/acespecs are seen as inhumane, strange, or crazy if they don’t relate to romantic love although they can feel fulfilled by other kinds of love. However, Laufey also shows that she doesn’t care if people perceive her as “mad”, and is happy with the realisation that she doesn’t need romance to live her life satisfactorily: “My melancholic days/are few and far away/I’ve had enough, called it off/As far as I’m concerned this witch is numb to love.” I particularly love that she calls herself a ‘witch’ – it taps into the fairytale magic of this song, suggesting people might see her as abnormal or a villain. It further alludes to how women were called ‘witches’ if they didn’t conform to societal roles, like finding a husband, in classical times. Laufey doesn’t mind this so-called ‘abnormality’ in her and grows to love it either way – much like us aro/acespecs who can still live beautiful, magical lives filled with our own interpretations of love even if this doesn’t include romantic love. 

2. Second Best

This second song is composed beautifully and seems to progress from a sort of sad reflection to a nostalgic reminiscence before being brought back to earth and the reality of being someone’s second choice.

The opening is very soft with only guitar accompanying Laufey’s voice. It shows how she begins to regret her relationship with her lover. She calls herself “stupid in love,” and says “I’ll always regret how I couldn’t ever tell.” I like how she uses this line to show her regret for not being able to share her feelings with this person, but also that she couldn’t “tell…that you walked a little faster, left me behind” – she couldn’t realise that her feelings were not reciprocated. Thus, she conveys the bitter-sweetness of hope that something would’ve become of their love had she been able to confess her feelings, but also regret for not recognising that her feelings weren’t reciprocated and saving herself the pain of being someone’s second choice. 

Although she starts with her regrets, there’s a clear sense of romance that blooms into the second part of the song. ‘Second Best’ is composed to a waltz rhythm, mimicking this romantic dance, with more instruments coming in to supplement this emotion and suggesting the romance she still associates with the person she loves. This is mirrored in the lyrics – “I’d watch as you dream at night,” “well, you swung me around in that midsummer dance.” The waltz rhythms paired with the jazzy melodies create an interesting contrast. Waltz was not usually composed to minor tones, but the singing shows the sadness and melancholy Laufey feels at being forgotten, left behind and not prioritised, especially on lines like “held me in close as you thought of your past.” This shows how the pain of the situation breaks through memories she looks back on with love. 

The ending of the bridge breaks this reminiscence of their romance. Laufey realizes she’s been doing much better by stepping away from someone who doesn’t value her, so asks why she still wonders if they would want her back. As she comes to this realisation, the romantic music around her fades as though she breaks out of her memory when she decides her distance is probably best for her, despite the pain it causes. The last verse brings the feelings of the first two together. She begins once again with regret about how she never listened to those who warned her about this person. She’s now learned her lesson, and with time, she will learn to move on from her love for this person when she falls in love – possibly with someone else, but also possibly with herself, discovering that she’s worth more than someone who sees her as a second choice. This is shown in her reworking the lyrics of the first verse: “that you walked a little faster, left me behind” becomes “when I’ve walked a little further into my life/Fallen in love, left you behind.”

This reworking of lyrics is also shown in the last chorus that ends the song. “You were my everything/I was your second best” becomes “you were my everything/I’m just your second best.” She progresses through the song as though she “was” the second best, and there was still a chance that maybe now she is no longer second best, maybe she can still be the top choice. But as the song progresses, she realises she is still very much second best, and that’s why it’s time to move on. 

3. Haunted 

I truly love the way ‘Haunted’ has been composed! Its sound evokes a foggy, misty night with an eerie air. The syncopated rhythms of this song sound a bit like a tiptoe, creating the sense of sneaking around doing something that’s prohibited. Laufey’s tone of voice throughout is also very soft and sultry, which evokes further this creepy, haunted atmosphere.  Especially on the line “I know he don’t love me quite like I love him,” which features single notes on the strings matching the minor tone on “I love him,” suggesting that her love for him is what’s so scary and suspenseful with unclear consequences. 

She further paints the picture in the verses with imagery to support her singing – “one more kiss/wine-stained lips” “pale moonlight, misty eyes” “rose perfume, low-lit room” – evoking something eerie, forbidden and sinful but nonetheless desirable, much like her relationship with the person she’s singing about. Sure enough, in the chorus she suggests – “I hold on to every ounce of sin.” She knows this is something she should not be doing, and yet she clings to it despite its haunting, scary nature because it’s addictive and desirable to her. “Lay me down, ghostly sounds/Haunt the hallways as he wraps me around” describes her intimacy with her lover, but also suggests that he’s slowly killing her (“lay me down”) by using her and leading her on, making her into a ghost. It’s interesting how though she feels she’s dead and describes herself making “ghostly” sounds, she is the ghost who is being haunted by him, who is alive. 

4. Must Be Love
5. While You Were Sleeping 

‘Must Be Love’ has the dreamy quality of a lot of Laufey’s music – compared to ‘Dreamer’s’ passionate tone, this song is softer and sounds more romantic. Dreams are a common theme throughout the sound and lyrics of the album. In the first track Laufey dreams of love beyond conventions, in the second, she sees her own memories in dreams, in the third she is haunted by dreams – here, she seems to be living in a dream, where she sings “time’s moving so much slower lately,” “lost in your wonderland I hope I’m never found,” and she also explicitly says “I’m awake inside a dream.” The chorus shows her intensifying feelings for this person, as the pitch of the melodies rises through “I’m all in, I’m fallin'/Can’t get back up/Can’t think right, too tongue-tied/It must be love.” This is seen even more in the second chorus, with the harmonies on “Come kiss me, convince me/This must be, it must be love.” Interestingly, Laufey says she’s “tongue-tied,” and uses lyrics with similar-sounding words that are like tongue twisters – almost as though she’s stumbling over her words as she falls for this person (“all in/fallin',” “come kiss me/convince me,” “sappy stupid something”). The slow pace of the song and her soft dreamy vocals add further to the floaty, intoxicating feeling of realising you are in love. 

Similar to ‘Must Be Love,’ ‘While You Were Sleeping’ describes the dreamlike experience of falling in love with someone. The swung rhythms make these songs sound almost like slow dance tracks and add to their romance. Dreams feature in this song too, as Laufey sings, “while you were sleeping I fell in love.” It seems like she is a dream to her lover, she realises they desire and dream of her love in their sleep so she falls in love with them in their dream, and in real life, making their dream come true. It also suggests that the tranquillity of lying beside the person she loves felt as wonderful as a dream and she fell in love. I love how this song focuses on the exact trivial moment you realise you are in love with someone – “I trace it all back 3.30 AM.” They’re simply sleeping, but it suddenly dawns on her how perfect their love is and that it’s something she wants to experience forever – and she realises that maybe she truly is in love with this person. 

6. Lovesick

‘Lovesick’ takes a turn from the romantic quality of the previous two tracks, seeming to describe Laufey losing the love she described earlier. She grows lovesick as she mourns her lover leaving her. As she starts the song with “floorboards creaking in my home,” the sound of the guitar with palm-muting sounds a lot like those creaky floorboards. As her voice opens up in the chorus, she adds to the romance of the moment “when the gold rays fell on your skin/and my hair got caught in the wind.” Then, “the choir sang a melancholic hymn” – following which the choir actually joins in, painting a divine memory of her lover in our minds. While this song is very melancholy, the use of the choir and harmonies add a certain romance to the heartbreak and yearning she feels for her lover who left her. They contrast the bouncy, rather desperate sound of the guitar.

Dreams feature once again in this song as Laufey says, “dreams are nightmares in my bed.” Even if she dreams of her lover, on waking she realises they are not there and she has lost them, so it feels as bad as a nightmare. However, in some way, her dreams are still an escape for her. “In the morning you would be gone/I’d be mourning, trying to hold on”: she plays with the words morning/mourning, and how she wishes away the light of morning since it pulls her away from dreams and from sleep making her realise that her lover is not near – “In the morning, you’re not in my bed/I’ll just sleep until I fall dead.” She’d rather sleep away the day and dream of her absent lover than face the morning – or the reality that they are no longer with her. 

This song also puts a different spin on ‘Haunted.’ ‘Haunted’ paints a picture of ghostly hallways and a foggy, misty night where she is intimate with a lover who abandons her in the morning because they don’t love her. Meanwhile, ‘Lovesick’ could showcase her feelings the morning after, where the lover leaves her: “floorboards creak” less creepily but more sadly – she still yearns for them, dreams of them and wishes away the morning which brings on her ‘morning sickness’ or ‘lovesickness,’ sleeping the day away so she can meet them in dreams until she spends the night with them to be haunted by them again.

7. California and Me
8. Nocturne (Interlude)

‘California and Me’ continues the theme of ‘Lovesick,’ explaining to us now the reason why Laufey lost the love she found in tracks 4 and 5: her lover leaves her for an old flame. She creates distance between her and her lover, showing that they returned to New York – across the country from her in California – for their old flame. She describes how her own city feels forlorn and sad now that her lover is gone. In ‘Must Be Love,’ she described how “traffic on Sunset” doesn’t faze her, but now that her lover has left, she says “Driving down Sunset’s a terrible sight.” She was “dancing down streets,” but now “the mountains of LA weep” around her when the one she loves is gone. She’s left alone with her beautiful city – both of which are now filled with nostalgia and yearning for this lover who left instead of their former magic and romance. The Philharmonia Orchestra adds a beautiful touch to this song, creating an idyllic, dreamy feel that features even in Laufey’s heartbreaking songs. The rhythms and sounds of the flute are very light and airy here – they somewhat mirror Laufey’s resigned sadness as she lets her lover leave, knowing there’s nothing she can do to save their relationship since they don’t love her back and would pick someone else over her anyway. 

‘California and Me’ transitions beautifully into ‘Nocturne (Interlude)’ – the similar opening on the piano mirrors the one used in the previous track, to the point where you don’t even realise the song changing! The song then transitions to feature melodies from the last track, ‘Bewitched.’ It seems to set the tone for the rest of the album, retracing what we have already heard and showcasing to us what will come next. The transition from the sadness of ‘California and Me’ to the romance of ‘Bewitched’ seems to allude to the hopeful and happy ending of this album, discovering a love for love itself even when it can hurt you. 

9. Promise

‘Promise’ is a painfully sad song about leaving behind someone you still love. The title and the first lyric, “I made a promise,” suggest that the song might be romantic. However, Laufey breaks this illusion with the next line – “to distance myself.” She promises not to stay with someone, but to cut them out of her life though she still loves them. She “took a flight through aurora skies,” leaving this person behind hoping for better, for a life she dreams of. However, what she gets when she leaves isn’t what she hoped for, as she realises “it hurts to be something, it’s worse to be nothing with you.” It’s difficult to try and achieve her dreams, to become “something,” and amongst that struggle, she can’t seem to shake the memory of the love she left behind and how much she hates that it couldn’t flourish – “it’s worse to be nothing with you.” Again, the music on this track suggests a lot of romance and also yearning, evoking a lot of nostalgia and sounding like a dreamy memory. 

10. From the Start

‘From the Start’ is a very simple song about unrequited love. The bouncy and somewhat upbeat sound make it enjoyable to listen to as well, putting a different spin on the unrequited love that features in a lot of Laufey’s songs in this album. While the others really convey yearning, nostalgia and sadness, this one is a lot more upbeat and in some ways a bit desperate, conveyed by the jazzy elements like the scatting after the first chorus, the off-beat rhythms and the brushes used to play the drums. Laufey shows this desperation when she sings, “love is driving me a bit insane/have to get this off my chest, I’m telling you today,” unable to hold in her feelings even though she knows they aren’t reciprocated. 

11. Misty

This song is a cover, but I really loved Laufey’s rendition of it. The quality of her voice is truly out of this world – I love how she’s able to hold out notes, her use of vibrato and how she uses it to really emphasise the emotion of what she’s singing. She also has an incredible ability to switch between a lower and higher range which is a pleasure to listen to, and also something that I really want to emulate as a singer! 

I love the choice of the word ‘misty’ to describe being in love here. It implies lots of things. One could be that she loses herself in love – she gets ‘misty’ when she’s around this person as she is so overwhelmed by her feelings for them. Another could be that she can only focus on this person when she’s around them – she can’t see anyone or anything else but them, so it’s almost as if everything else is blurred, ‘misty,’ and they’re the only one in focus. This second interpretation is shown in the arrangement, where Laufey’s voice is given utmost space to shine and the use of brushes on the drums creates a rustling, ‘misty’ sound in the back like a windy, foggy day.

12. Serendipity

I really love the way that Laufey sings this song too. While in previous tracks, specifically ‘While You Were Sleeping,’ she traces the exact moment when she realised she fell in love with someone, here, she leaves it up to chance, to serendipity. 

I particularly like the chorus – 

“Four-leaf clovers and lucky dimes

Coincidences and cosmic signs

Have proved that I am quite naïve

I’m falling fast, failing gravity

And all that I see is serendipity.” 

On the one hand, this could mean that she believes in superstition and luck, and she’d be considered quite naïve for putting faith in those things. In much the same way, she’s quick to trust, quick to fall in love, quick to attach herself tightly to something that might just be a happy accident, a trick of luck and something fleeting that you can’t always believe in – a ‘serendipity’ that will soon pass her by. On the other, it could also mean that she’s been hoping that she can will love into her life with her superstitious beliefs in these emblems of luck, like looking for the right astrological sign or a four-leaf clover. She was naïve to rely on these external sources to try and will love into her life, because all this while, love caught her when she didn’t even realise it – it took her by surprise as a happy accident, as serendipity, that she couldn’t have ever predicted. 

13. Letter To My 13 Year Old Self

I can’t help but tear up at this beautiful, emotional song. ‘Letter To My 13 Year Old Self’ seems to me universally relatable, but at the same time contains just a touch of Laufey’s own life and feelings that add even more to the emotion. Looking back on your struggles once you’ve gotten past them is always such a bittersweet experience. While you’re happy to have gotten past the hard times, there’s also a part of you that feels so much remorse for your younger self who went through that kind of pain – wanting to go back and “give her a squeeze” and “let her know that she’s beautiful,” wanting to comfort your younger self now that you’re wiser and know better. 

We feel a lot of sympathy for Laufey herself in this song as she describes her experience being a mixed-race child in Iceland. She always felt different and singled out for her looks, her name. “Don’t you worry ‘bout your curly hair,” “I’m so sorry that they pick you last/Try to say your foreign name and laugh/I know that you feel loud, so different from the crowd/Of big blue eyes and long blonde hair and boys that stare.” This paints a heart-rending image of a small girl just trying to make her way through a world that is so different from her. 

I particularly like the second verse and chorus:

“The days of tears and failure fears

And no one cares

Will all make sense, cause

You’ll grow up

And grow so confident, and

Write your story, fall in love a little too

The things you thought you’d never do.” 

In life, we often struggle a lot and wonder why we must go through certain things and feel so much pain. But in hindsight, at least for me, every painful event has always felt like the best possible thing that could’ve happened to me at the time and the lesson I should’ve learned is clear. And sure enough, you grow from your hardships to be more confident, wise, and strong, and go on to do things you thought you’d never be able to achieve, so “keep on going with your silly dream/life is prettier than it may seem.” Laufey brings up dreams in this track again – instead of losing herself in fantastical dreams, though, she urges us to believe in dreams that we can bring to life, no matter how difficult doing that may feel. So, she features dreams even as she discusses the theme of self-love – and allowing yourself to dream and reach for the things you want and deserve.  

Thus, this song is devastatingly comforting. It feels like a big hug when you’re on the verge of breaking down, but also instils gratitude in us for how far we have come and grown since we were kids. It’s a reminder to always be kind to ourselves for sticking around for ourselves through our own hardships!

14. Bewitched

The closing track, ‘Bewitched,’ puts a spin on ‘Dreamer,’ and brings us face-to-face with the magic of love. The introductory music sounds really magical and enchanting, aligning with the song’s title. Similar to ‘Dreamer,’ Laufey once again invokes these Disney-movie style soundtracks, except this time, she stays true to the fairytale feeling they carry instead of turning it on its head as she does in ‘Dreamer.’ Laufey opens ‘Dreamer’ by rejecting love and relationships, saying that she will continue to dream without them. She then ‘falls down the rabbit hole’ and explores the ‘wonderland’ of love throughout the album, and now at the end of this adventure, in ‘Bewitched,’ she realises that rejecting love didn’t help because it’s ended up bewitching her anyway.

While in ‘Dreamer,’ she describes herself as a ‘witch’ who is numb to love, now she says this person has “cast a spell” on her heart. She describes her unfamiliarity with this feeling – “I’m so bewildered/What’s this new desire called?” “You’re not even gone/I already miss you/What’s going on?” In ‘Dreamer’, she thinks that she knows everything about love – she is a cunning “witch” and no boy would “be so smart” as to capture her heart. Now, though, she realises she “didn’t know that much at all/bout love before/but now I think I’m learning.” She wasn’t a wise witch as she was “bewitched” by this person’s spell – but it’s not something she regrets or is upset about. In fact, she enjoys and embraces the feeling of being entranced and intoxicated in love with someone – as that is in fact part of the beauty of the feeling! 

‘Bewitched’ thus showcases love through a rosy lens. I really admire the vibe of this album and of Laufey’s voice. The sounds of the music and the lyrics create images and stories of love that seem almost like fairytales in each case, so love is portrayed in a rather idyllic and beautiful way throughout this album. The songs transition through rejecting love completely, to learning about all its different aspects – from being unrequited, addictive, spellbinding, and even creating self-discovery to realise that love in all its forms is bewitching, it’s a spell that is cast on you and that you’ll get caught up in no matter how much you try to reject it. I truly enjoy the dreamy, old-school feel of Laufey’s music and especially this album – it was an incredibly enjoyable listen!