With a song title like ‘Clean Your Room,’ it seems straightforward as to what the intention or meaning behind the song is – but Kiere’s writing is profound in a way that keeps us, the audience, guessing what the song is about.
The song starts with an angel-like echo harmony which accompany an upbeat guitar strum. What’s intriguing about this is that the echo is actually a synth, EQ’ed and manipulated to sound like a vocal hum and the electric guitar is tuned in a unique D major tuning.
The intro is perhaps one of the stand-out parts of this piece. The angelic echos create an eeriness which leaves us in anticipation of what’s to come.
Following the haunting background vocals, the songwriter sings about an evident decline in their mental health with the lyrics ‘I have about 10 glasses of half drank coke – Which I’ve no energy to bring downstairs’ and ‘To dream of being simply happy enough to get out of bed’. With the trend of ‘bed-rotting’ on social media, this song encapsulates elements of this topic which is quite relatable to many. Most people in today’s society suffer with depression, so to hear a song written from a perspective of being in the midst of a depressive episode, it’s oddly comforting.
The instrumentals strip back for the repetitive pre-chorus, ‘And then an angel calls – clean your room’ which brings in the title of the track.
The chorus is full of life, the guitar and vocals blend seamlessly, and the celestial synths match the singer’s unique vocal range in a way that doesn’t overpower them. The lyrics touch on a deeper meaning to the song with ‘I uncover the feelings of bereavements gloom’ and ‘How much I miss you,’ which could allude to the song revolving around grief and the imminent depression that follows it.
The verse follows a melancholic theme and further develops the suspected grief the singer is dealing with from the chorus. The lyric ‘Cuss how I can sleep – When you’re buried deep’ is a climax in the meaning of the song as we can piece together that these lyrics follow a theme of feeling guilt after a loved one has passed on. Kierie depicts this brilliantly and does a great job to add context to a song without giving too much away – which allows the listener to interpret the lyrics as the song goes on.
The bridge is the climax of the song and contains beautifully crafted lyrics like ‘every dream is dark blue’ and ‘my mind ruined it like my messy room’, which again brings in the theme of declining mental health and being tied to your bed due to unruly thoughts and feelings that leave you numb and paralysed at times.
The song ends with the repetition of ‘Angel please don’t go’ with vocal effects that sound like a cry for help and really helps to tie in the overall theme of the song and leads into the outro with the angel-like harmonies in the background that really make you feel as though an otherworldly spirit is among you.
In conclusion, this song is wonderfully crafted with well-produced vocals, instrumentals and beautiful lyrical imagery which can tug at the heartstrings while also making us bop our heads (perhaps with tears in our eyes). If you have some time, do yourself a favour and listen to this song as it’s sure to leave an impression that’ll stick with you for some time.