There is a very specific kind of humiliation in opening Instagram and discovering that everybody you know apparently got their fucking life together while you were asleep. Somebody got engaged. Somebody got promoted. The girl who used to throw up tequila in your bathtub has somehow bought a house with tasteful fucking throw pillows. Meanwhile you’re in bed wondering when everybody received the instructions for adulthood and why yours apparently went to spam. Then comes the uglier question. What the fuck is wrong with me? Alexa Kate’s Does Anybody? lives right there, in the panic of watching everybody move forward while you’re still trying to figure out where the line even starts.
The indie-pop production gives that anxiety somewhere to move. A synth riff develops into a pulsing groove while percussion builds underneath Alexa as the pressure in the writing rises, keeping the track moving while she feels increasingly stuck. That tension works beautifully because the song refuses to mope around the bedroom with her. The beat keeps going. Everybody keeps going. Alexa is the one trying to fucking catch up.
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Alexa introduces us to the bedroom first. “My bedroom ceiling’s used to seeing me cry / And I don’t feel it til the quiet stops by.” That ceiling has apparently seen some shit. The part that gets me is the quiet because staying busy can keep a spiral waiting outside for hours. Then you get home, take off your bra and suddenly your brain would like to discuss every questionable decision you’ve made since sophomore year. Alexa knows her own problem. “I overthink and I live inside my head / I guess I’m safest when I’m standing on the edge.” There’s something brutal about admitting the uncomfortable place has become the familiar one.
Then everybody else starts moving. “They’re moving forward, and I’m / I’m running out of time.” Fuck that line. Nothing can turn another person’s perfectly innocent happiness into an existential crisis faster than already feeling behind. Your friend texts that she got the job and you really are happy for her. Then five minutes later you’re staring at your own life wondering whether you missed a deadline nobody bothered to mention. Alexa isn’t jealous of somebody else’s place in line. She’s desperately trying to find her own.
That’s why “I’m not tryna be dramatic / But actually that’s just how it happens” might be my favorite lyric here. Women will be halfway through an emotional collapse and still stop to make sure nobody thinks we’re being dramatic. Sorry my life currently feels as though it’s caving in. I promise to keep the volume at a socially acceptable level. Then Alexa immediately asks “Does anybody see me? Hear me? Screaming.” Girl, pick a lane. Actually, don’t. That contradiction is the fucking song. She wants somebody to notice while simultaneously apologizing for becoming noticeable.
Her writing turns that same pressure toward the work she’s putting in. “I’ll write it out like a million times / Until it’s true every word and every line,” she sings before asking, “could you please just tell me if I’m / Asking too much / While I’m catching up.” I’m careful about reading that strictly as a music-career confession because Alexa never tells us what she’s trying to catch up to. The feeling is bigger anyway. You work your ass off toward something and eventually effort starts feeling suspicious when the result refuses to arrive. Suddenly you want somebody, anybody, to tell you the thing you’re chasing still exists.
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Eventually the spiral gets a physical object to abuse. Alexa is “throwing my phone / And it’s hitting the wall / And I’m hitting a wall,” which is such a satisfying piece of writing because the metaphor literally crashes into the room. Of course it’s the fucking phone. The same little rectangle that lets you watch everybody else announce the fabulous developments in their lives finally gets launched across hers. By the time she repeats “I can’t get out,” the polite explanation is gone. She has spent the whole song asking whether anybody can see her struggling. Now she sounds trapped enough to stop worrying about how the struggle looks.
Alexa Kate is a New York singer-songwriter who has developed her writing between New York and Los Angeles, with connection sitting at the center of how she describes her music. Her current project, good for long, is a five-song EP she wrote or co-wrote throughout, and Does Anybody? fits into a collection concerned with the messy shit our brains do around connection and uncertainty. Her influences include Gracie Abrams and Taylor Swift, but Alexa’s strongest argument for herself here comes from how plainly she catches that private panic of believing everybody else received a head start.
Somewhere another girl is posting the engagement ring while somebody else is announcing the dream job. Good for them. Alexa is still in the bedroom with the ceiling that has watched her cry, trying to find her place in line while wondering whether anybody can hear her asking for it. Does Anybody? understands how quickly everybody else’s progress can start feeling like evidence against your own life. Sometimes you want to be gracious about it. Sometimes you want to throw the fucking phone at the wall.
