Life leaves a trail on Charlotte Cornfield’s “Cut and Dry”

Charlotte Cornfield is a songwriter who brings a sense of profundity to the simplest of phrases. The Toronto-based artist's 2021 album Highs In The Minuses was something of a breakthrough in that sense; a newfound lyrical maturity coinciding with her most well-received work so far. At peace with life in her early 30s, she was able to reflect on the more intense moments of her early 20s spent living in Brooklyn and write about them with the kind of clarity that can only truly be brought on by distance.

Cornfield's rich vein of form continues on new album Could Have Done Anything, due May 12 via Polyvinyl / Double Double Whammy. Today she shares new song "Cut and Dry," a tender waltz through the ties that bind two people who can't ever quit one another. Bathed in a warm acoustic hum, Cornfield admits to having concerns about this person ("I see myself in you and that’s the source of my dread") but ultimately lands on the conclusion that a life without them would be even harder to handle. The song comes with a video, premiering below, that takes the reminiscence a step further, utilising footage from an old school talent show Cornfield took part in as a child in the '90s.

Speaking via email, Cornfield told The FADER: "When I wrote this song I was thinking about the idea of leaving things behind as a part of moving on - those painful past experiences that cause a pang of embarrassment and regret, the people who were at one point a central part of my life with whom I've fallen out of orbit - and how we can't really sever ties with our past selves no matter how hard we try.

"When I sent this track to my brother Joe it really resonated with him, and he told me that he was sitting on a bunch of old family camcorder footage that he'd been meaning to check out. When he unearthed it there was this treasure trove of childhood music moments, from a kindergarten Christmas concert to a ragtime piano competition to basement rockouts from that awkward pre-teen stage. I was struck by the images of my childhood self and how much of the present-day me I see in her, especially in the joy and passion and drive around music.

"We brought the camcorder out to the rehearsal space and then to the most recent show that I played, at 8 months pregnant, and the whole thing feels like a full circle moment."