Getting Personal with Savannah Conley & her brand new EP ‘Best I Can’
By Allyson J.L. Clayton
Hello Pleaser Magazine Subscriber! You came here looking for the next (musical) love of your life, and boy, do I have the one for you! Get to know your new favorite artist, Savannah Conley.
[I don’t understand how you’ve had a hand
In everything I’ve ever done wrong
…
You make me someone I can’t stand
I did, I did the best I can]
No matter how hard we try--and even with all of our best efforts to affect maturity--the relationships we get wrapped up in, in our teens and our 20s, romantic and platonic alike, are full of blurred lines and things we never thought would happen. Best I Can, Savanna Conley’s newest EP, is intensely introspective and immediately immersive. I felt nostalgic for the days when my closest friendships were my entire life. When we would be on iMessage before school, texting during class, and on the phone until we fell asleep. When we became a part of one another with such ease. Back then, emotions lived on the surface of our skin and with one wrong move they were let out into the wild, for better or, more often, for worse.Then, we grew up. The glass shattered and we took off our love blinders. It’s the sheet that gets pulled out from under your dreamy picnic, the feeling of being so close to someone you feel like the same person, only to have your foundation torn apart by the natural ebb and flow of life.
[My two friends at each other’s throats
Lovers lost and punches thrown
Sawyer moved out on his own
It was always gonna happen]
I had the absolute privilege of talking to Conley ahead of the release of this latest project. She opened up about vulnerability, whether she is intentional about it or not (“accidentally, all the time”), dealing with loneliness and losing yourself in other people–all themes that are ever present in her music. If she could play “‘wall-up’ music all day, every day”, she would. Vulnerability seems to come naturally to her but not in a way that feels actually vulnerable.
“I think I fancied myself a vulnerable person, but in recent years have realized I am not.”
We talked about how the more we exist in the realm of social media as our main form of connection, it gets really hard to tell what is learned rhetoric–casually talking about depression and using psychology buzzwords to simply express that you are feeling sad–versus what is actual vulnerability. How do we form meaningful connections over the internet?
Even though Conley considers herself a “vomit-writer” and has a hard time not telling the truth through her lyrics (even though she really would prefer to keep it all in), she is glad to have an outlet in songwriting.
“A. if I get this out, it has less power, B. it has the opportunity for someone else to be seen, and C. it gives us a chance to connect over this super specific feeling we’ve all had.”
[Oh New York take him away from me
I can’t move on when he’s breathing the air I’m breathing
It’s too intertwined
His story is mine
And I’m so sick of talking about it
Oh New York take him away from me]
I asked how she copes with loneliness and we both took a pause and then laughed–it’s a big question. It felt surprising as I said it, even though I had these questions prepared for days. For a long time, Conley surrounded herself with other people, half expecting their presence to simply cure the loneliness and feelings of isolation she carried with her from childhood. Turns out, that doesn’t fix anything and it makes it that much easier to lose yourself in the people you’re around. She talked a little about not knowing what she liked to do or how to be by herself getting out of her first big relationship. From learning how to enjoy her total autonomy to figuring out what she liked to do now, she now feels free from pushing her own boundaries to please others. She did the best she could!
[I’m learning lessons that you didn’t wanna
Cleaning the mess that somebody gave ya
But there comes a time when drawin a line
Is the best thing I could do for ya]
To end our chat, we talked about how different her life is turning out to be compared to what she imagined for herself as a kid. She told me that, like a lot of us, she felt like there were very specific steps that she could take to get to where she wanted to go, but in reality, there were a lot more detours than she expected. A lot of growing up is realizing that there isn’t one way to do anything. Conley feels like because she started pursuing music so young, she made a lot of poor decisions and has been dealing with the repercussions of those decisions for the past couple of years. Now, 25, with a lot of detours and much more self-awareness under her belt, she feels like she is finally coming out of whatever was holding her back. “Toxically driven”, she is ready to do whatever it takes to make things work.
“Always Gonna Happen” gives me this sense of inevitability that kind of washes over you and settles in the pit of your stomach as you get older and realize how little control you have over the things that happen. “Best I Can”, with its “The 1975” vibes, feels frustrated and exhausted from giving your all to people who couldn’t be bothered to do the same for you. “Oh New York” makes me nostalgic for being so intertwined with someone that when the time came to let them go, physical distance was the only saving grace.
If Savannah isn’t at the top of your radar by the end of this article, she definitely will be once you’ve heard her songs. Get to your nearest music streaming service with a quickness! ‘Best I Can’ EP is out now, and don’t stop there, also give a listen to my other favorite tracks: ‘Being Around You’, ‘Suprise, Surprise’, and ‘Never Want to Be In Love’.
FYI - Seeing Savannah perform live is an ethereal experience. With the voice of a siren, she enchants the whole room and gets everyone to pay attention. And lucky for you, dear readers, she’s going on tour in just a few days! If you’re in or around any of these cities, do yourself a favor and get to a show!
