Friendzone - original song by Brandy Newton
Photo by Greg Pappas on Unsplash
Friendzone was written about one of those relationships that doesn’t fit neatly into a box.
The title tends to make people think it’s about rejection, but that’s never really what it meant to me.
It’s about the complicated space between friendship, love, sex and commitment.
The space where two people genuinely care about each other, enjoy being together and share real intimacy, but don’t necessarily want the same future.
I think we’re often taught that if you love someone, sleep with someone or share a deep connection with someone, it should naturally progress into a relationship.
But life isn’t always that simple.
Sometimes people come into our lives for a moment rather than a lifetime.
That doesn’t make the connection any less real.
It doesn’t make the feelings any less genuine.
It just means the relationship is what it is.
You can listen to the song on YouTube
Freindzone Live @ Froth Bunbury
When I listen back to the song now, I see two people trying to navigate that uncomfortable truth.
One person wanting the relationship to become something bigger.
The other accepting it for exactly what it is.
Neither person is necessarily wrong.
They’re just standing in different places.
Musically, I wanted the song to feel like an emotional hangover.
The repetitive guitar and swampy vocal create a feeling of being trapped inside your own thoughts. The morning after, when the night’s distractions have worn off and all that’s left is the truth you’ve been trying not to think about.
It’s waking up beside someone you care about and realising you’re both looking at the same thing differently and you have to have that uncomfortable conversation.
One person is happy to let the moment be what it is.
The other wants it to become something more.
Eventually reality catches up with both of you.
It’s about love, friendship, sex and all the messy parts of a time in life where people become each other’s comfort, even when they know it can’t stay that way forever.
It’s that strange space between affection and acceptance.
Between enjoying something and knowing it has an expiry date.
Knowing that unintentionally you’ve hurt someone and that you’re the bad guy.
That it can’t ever go back to what it was before because you’ve crossed a line.
The line that sits at the heart of the song for me is:
“Love isn’t always forever, so let’s lay here together.”
Because that’s what Friendzone is really about.
The idea that love can be real without being permanent and it can come in my different forms.
Not every meaningful connection is supposed to become a relationship.
Sometimes it’s the messy Friendzone.