Alejandra O’Leary‘s Owen is a philosophical exploration of the push and pull of emotional dependence, framed within a landscape of wistful nostalgia and self-realization. The song, opening with textured percussion and grounded by a resonant bassline, carries a cinematic power pop energy that evokes the swirling complexities of a relationship defined by an unspoken force, something primal yet painful, that binds two people together.
The opening line, “Too much of a good thing will spoil your dream,” sets the tone for a paradox that runs through the song: the tension between longing and the necessity to escape. O’Leary’s voice, both tender and resolute, conveys the vulnerability of someone who is caught between desire and disillusionment. This idea that too much love, or perhaps too much dependence, spoils the purity of the dream echoes throughout the lyrics, as if the protagonist is grappling with the suffocating intensity of a connection that simultaneously gives life and steals it away.
The refrain, “You’re the reason everyone’s running away,” becomes a mirror reflecting back the damage done by this unnamed force – Owen. Owen symbolizes a kind of gravitational pull, much like the black holes referenced in the song, which drag everything into their orbit, distorting reality and collapsing hope. The dream team and the posters allude to unreachable ideals, a shared world that looks promising from afar but disintegrates upon closer inspection.
The lyrics “It’s Owen or it’s no one” encapsulate a philosophical paradox of identity and attachment. Owen becomes a metaphor for the singularity of a relationship – either Owen, the embodiment of the dream, or nothing. This declaration is forceful yet tragic, as it expresses the protagonist’s inability to imagine life beyond this one person, even as they know the relationship is a source of madness. There’s a deep existential longing here, a yearning for meaning that can only be found in Owen, even if that means clinging to a destructive dependence.
In the final moments, as the protagonist wishes Owen goodbye, we are left with an image of unresolved tension: “To see me off and plant your feet where I was lost.” This lyric speaks to the finality of departure, yet it carries the weight of unfinished business, of something essential left behind. Even as the protagonist moves forward, Owen remains an indelible part of their identity, a ghost haunting the path ahead.
Owen is more than just a song about a relationship; it’s a meditation on the human condition, the fragile dance between attachment and freedom. It poses philosophical questions about the nature of love and identity – how much of ourselves we lose in the process of loving another, and how much we need that loss to feel complete. O’Leary’s opus is both a wistful farewell and a forceful declaration of dependence, set to a soundtrack that glistens with charisma and melancholy. Owen has been added to our New Music Spotlight playlist, as well as our TIMELESS playlist, whilst we continue to stream Alejandra O’Leary‘s wider discography, including Stricken.