My brain has ruined perfectly good nights before they even started. I’ll be standing in front of the mirror with my makeup done and somewhere between deciding whether my tits look better with or without the bra, my thoughts call an emergency fucking meeting. Am I overdressed, and am I even in the mood for this? Suddenly the girl who was supposed to be ordering an Uber is sitting on the edge of the bed considering sweatpants because her own brain talked her out of having a life. Siri Neel knows that girl because apparently she is that girl. West Street begins inside the overthinking and then does something I deeply respect. It pours a drink and takes the bitch downtown anyway.
British producer Mark Flannery gives Siri somewhere worth escaping to, pushing the pop toward a punchier British edge while keeping enough movement underneath her to make staying home feel increasingly stupid. Siri spent several years in Brighton, and she has said West Street grew from the freedom she felt surrounded by the city’s people and creative energy. You can hear that release happening in the track. The thoughts are still there, but the music keeps dragging her toward the door until eventually the only sensible option is to put on something cute and fucking go.
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She admits the problem immediately with “I know I think, more than I should / Try to close my mind, I wish I could.” Girl, same. My brain has taken a two-second facial expression from somebody across a room and turned it into a six-part documentary about why she secretly hates me. Siri’s version sends her walking through the streets still thinking everything over until the city starts interrupting. “In central crowds, I’m just one / Look around, blend with the sound.” That anonymity feels fucking delicious. Nobody in the crowd knows what she was worrying about twenty minutes ago. Nobody cares. She can disappear into everybody else for a minute and finally stop watching herself.
Then she gets to West Street and the woman who wanted to close her mind decides to use her body instead. “Messed up my hair, throw my hands to the ceiling / No I don’t care – falling in with this feeling.” There she fucking is. I love the messed-up hair because it’s such a tiny rebellion against the woman from the beginning who has been mentally checking herself all night. You leave home looking correct, then a few drinks happen and suddenly your lipstick has migrated somewhere near your chin and you’re dancing with a guy whose last name you will never know. That’s when the night finally gets good.
The release gets physical in the next verse. “Ah! I can breathe, it’s been a while / Shoulders down, no coat outside.” That “shoulders down” might be my favorite detail in the song because anybody who lives too much inside her head knows where that shit eventually goes. Your jaw is clenched. Your shoulders are practically earrings. Then something finally breaks the spell and your body realizes nobody is chasing you. Siri follows it with “What the hell? Its now my vibe,” which is basically the moment you remember you were fun before anxiety started acting like your fucking manager.
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There’s another little change I love. Earlier she promises herself “There’s a road I can go.” Later it becomes “There’s my road that I go!” She stops treating freedom as some possible destination and starts fucking walking there. That’s West Street in miniature. The route was available the whole time. She had to stop interrogating herself long enough to take it.
Siri Neel knows something about getting her voice back in a much less metaphorical sense. The Danish singer-songwriter lived and studied songwriting in Brighton before nerve damage left her unable to sing for six years. She eventually returned to music and has since performed at The Alternative Great Escape and been selected for IMPALA and YouTube’s 100 Artists to Watch in Europe initiative. West Street is the second single from her forthcoming five-track EP, with Flannery producing. I’m resisting the tidy inspirational-movie version of that biography because Siri’s song is having way more fun than that. She fought for six years to get her voice back. If the woman wants to fuck up her hair and dance on West Street now, somebody better order another round.
By the end she keeps repeating that she wants to go to the bar and groove on the tips of her feet, and honestly, repetition is the right ending. Overthinking loves another question. Siri quits answering. The hair gets messy and the shoulders finally come down. Somewhere along West Street her brain loses control of the evening, and thank fuck for that.
