The Singles Bar: HaleyJane Rose is just ‘Three First Names’
Rose wrestles with her social media presence versus real life on new single.
Welcome to The Singles Bar, a review series focused on new single and song releases.
It’s easy to feel like an imposter in the age of social media. Grappling with her online versus off-line personas, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist HaleyJane Rose, of folk-pop trio Boy Band, paints a vividly sly portrait of herself. “Three First Names,” decorated with dry humor and driving angst, is the first taste of Rose’s forthcoming debut solo record and illustrates “the contrast of what we put forward and what we choose to show about our lives versus the unedited reality,” she says of the song, which also fuses a plainspoken theatricality (from her studies at Marymount Manhattan College) with traditional folk music.
“I’ve got three first names and a champion heart / I’ve got $4 dollars to my name, so I’m a failing upstart,” she sings, masking reality behind a wobbling, makeshift facade of exaggeration. “I’m working through my bruises and my shitty credit / And, ‘Aren’t you an actor still? At least i think i read it’ / He’ll say he knows the words to my music / But if i had any good truth i’d use it / I’ve got three first names, that’s all he really knows about me / But i can talk to pretend to be much more…”
“Three First Names” (buy/stream) is culled from an ordinary day. “I was out with friends and ran into someone from my high school. He looked like he was doing so well, and when it was my turn to talk about how my life’s going, I gave my usual script,” explains Rose, whose phrasing bites onto each lyric. “But later I found myself really stuck in the interaction, wishing I could just tell people what’s really going on ⏤ no frills, just the honest, sort-of-laughable truth. I wanted to write a version of the event where I didn’t care to edit myself, where I lay all the fun, messy stuff out on the table. Maybe one day I’ll be the version of myself I present as online, but for now, this version is pretty good, too.”
Listen below:
Follow Rose on her socials: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Website
