Sharon Van Etten’s fifth album, Remind Me Tomorrow, was made under the pressure of uncertainty. The title suggests procrastination, or as George Orwell once put it in Homage to Catalonia, “mañana.”
Videos by American Songwriter
One of indie rock’s most beloved voices had paused music and returned to school to earn a degree in psychology. She was also busy acting, with a role in the Netflix series The OA and an appearance in Twin Peaks: The Return.
In 2016, she arrived in Canada for an event to promote Strange Weather, a film she’d scored. As her friend and filmmaker Katherine Dieckmann prepared to present the film, Van Etten told her she was pregnant.
The news felt like a crushing weight. She told Vanity Fair she began to cry. “I don’t know how I’m going to do this as an artist with all the other things I have going on in my life in New York,” she thought.
But Dieckmann showed Van Etten a photo that later became the cover art for Remind Me Tomorrow. She said, “You’ll figure it out.”
“Apocalyptic Mom”
If you’re familiar with the photo, it’s young domestic chaos—the messy, imperfect joy of childhood and familial survival. The children in the picture belong to Dieckmann. While raising them, she also made films, taught at Columbia University, and worked as a creative director for a production company. The lesson: she made it and so would her friend.
Van Etten, of course, did make it. She wrote and amassed sketches and demos of songs. The pile of ideas eventually shaped Remind Me Tomorrow (2019). The photo inspired the recording sessions. She said the running joke was “Apocalyptic Mom.”
Gentrification
Though she was born in New Jersey, Van Etten’s life and career are largely defined by her time in New York. It’s hard not to think of her as a New York artist. On the album’s second single, “Seventeen,” she confronts her teen self as a metaphor for how much her adopted home had changed.
She returned to visit her Brooklyn neighborhood. Many spots where she used to hang out were gone. The neighborhood was now too expensive and younger residents squeezed the old ones out.
Stopping the bitterness she felt, Van Etten remembered she was once the young kid pushing out the old-timers. Still, anyone living in a thriving city amidst gentrification knows the feeling.
Downtown hot spot
Halfway up the street
I used to be free
I used to be seventeen
Your favorite bar or coffee shop closes. Meanwhile, the music venues you came of age in get torn down and replaced with high-rise condos. “Seventeen” tells the story of unrelenting transformation.
Follow my shadow
Around your corner
I used to be seventeen
Now you’re just like me
What Happened to That Girl?
The music video follows Van Etten around her former hangouts. She visits the places where she first performed in the city. Many had vanished, but some survived—fossilized within the altered landscape.
She told the NME she was emotional going back. Former neighbors asked what happened “to that girl that used to play guitar in the basement.”
In the clip, she sees the 17-year-old version of herself from the perspective of a changed city. The younger girl climbs fences and explores. Van Etten looks on wistfully at an old life she may or may not still recognize.
Going Home
Then she returned to the house she grew up in, where her parents still live. There’s a scene where the actor portraying teenage Van Etten walks up her parents’ driveway with a guitar, leaving for New York.
It’s a replay of what happened in Van Etten’s life. She needed to get to New York—leaping into the unknown. She can stare at her past, but there’s no way to cure the teen’s bubbling anxiety.
“Seventeen” reaches its fullest drama when Van Etten lets loose of pent-up demons, fear, advice, regret, and anything one could bring to a conversation with the past. It’s almost like screaming at a ghost.
The last thing a kid wants to become is an older “you.” They’ll do anything to avoid the fate. But maybe how you ended up isn’t so bad. The girl’s going to be OK.
I know what you’re gonna be
I know that you’re gonna be
You’ll crumble it up just to see
Afraid you’ll be just like me
Photo by Roberto Ricciuti/Redferns
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