Sharon Van Etten has always been the kind of artist who helps people make sense of the world around them, and We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong concerns itself with the questions we ask ourselves when we think the world – or at least, our world – might be ending.
Did we try hard enough? How do we protect the things most precious to us from destructive forces beyond our control? And how do we salvage something worthwhile when it seems all is lost? In considering these questions and her own vulnerability in the face of them, Van Etten has created a stunning meditation on how life’s changes can be both terrifying and transformative. We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong articulates the beauty and power that can be rescued from our wreckages.
The more she faced – whether in new dangers emerging or old traumas resurfacing – the more tightly she held onto these songs and recordings, determined to work through grief by reasserting her power and staying squarely at the wheel of her next album. That interplay of loss and growth became a blueprint for what would become We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong.
This is, in itself, a subtle act of control, but in sharing these songs it remains an optimistic and generous one. The album’s cover art reflects that too, inspired as much by Van Etten’s old life as her new one.
“I wanted to convey that in an image with me walking away from it all” says Van Etten, “not necessarily brave, not necessarily sad, not necessarily happy.”
There is darkness here but there is light too, and all of it is held together by Van Etten’s soaring vocals and uncanny ability to both pierce the hearts of her listeners and make them whole again. Things are not dark, she reminds us, only darkish.
