REVIEW: INSIDE ELLA GIBSON’S “JUNK DRAWER:” NOSTALGIA, ANXIETY, MEMORY
WRITTEN BY DEL HENDRICK
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LA-based singer-songwriter Ella Gibson, whose inspirations draw from The Japanese House, Lizzy McAlpine and Adrianne Lenker, has just released her newest single, “Junk Drawer.” Inside this gorgeously bittersweet song is a life lived not only by Gibson, but all those who listen. While it surrounds her move from her college dorm freshman year, the way it describes her belongings, accumulated with sentimentality and youthful fears allows listeners to see themselves and their lives in every pocket of the song between wistful lyrics. Though the song is imbued with self-doubt and loneliness from missing those no longer in her life, Gibson manages to keep the instrumentals somehow hopeful. She captures the ease of pop to support the depth of her lyrics. The tandem of this work hoists the song up perfectly.
Whether it be a souvenir attained on vacation or a trinket impulsively bought at the mall with friends, we’ve all gathered our collections of items that hold special value to us. We designate worth onto these items out of the fond memories they represent. Ella Gibson does this concept justice with her warm guitar riffs that emulate the closing of a season, the oncoming heat of summer. Memories that stick with the changing of the leaves; goodbyes and farewells represented by chords and a melodically reflective voice. “I guess in the end keepsakes don’t matter / They’re safe in my hands but slipping like water / Moving on’s hard, holding on’s harder / I know what comes has to go,” Gibson sings in the chorus of “Junk Drawer.”
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, if you were to go open whatever your version of a junk drawer may be — a box in the back of your closet, a backpack from high school filled to the brim with wrinkled paper, mechanical pencils and notes passed in class — you’ll be unearthing a swarm of memories as well. Fond ones, harrowing ones, ones that spring tears to your eyes or a smile to your face. Gibson asks you about the emotional weight of each item. She, in a way, joins you as you travel down memory lane, ensuring you aren’t alone as you visit people you don’t speak to anymore, objects from places you’ve forgotten to miss. By so clearly reflecting on the detritus of the past, she turns the lens toward the future. With all of these scattered objects, what room is there for more? How many new beginnings and fresh starts can a junk drawer accumulate? She’s anxious, but she’s not shutting it out. Found within “Junk Drawer” is a love letter to crayon stubs, postcards, matchboxes, diaries, ticket stubs, clothes that no longer fit. Found less explicitly is the resolve to keep on going even when it instills anxiety to imagine more.
This single is born out of harsh uncertainty as much as it is nostalgia and relatability. To her, it captures the feeling of being “nostalgic for the past and not being able to fully process where [she] was in the present moment.” Gibson, whose mother kept her old birthday candles and reused them every year, has a gift for making her personal experiences accessible to everyone. “I know it’s not really up to me, what I want to be worth remembering / Everybody moved on without me, but I’m still here with the eulogy,” makes up the start of the bridge, heartfelt and universal. Gibson is an avid thrifter and music industry student at UCLA whose sound leans into indie folk-pop. Unafraid to write about the smaller facets of life that carry massive emotional weight, this song promises more uniquely human and poignant work to come from Gibson’s discography.
