Artists usually have one idea mind when they’re writing a song and the meaning behind it, however a lot of fans will find the lyrics connect to something else in their life so the meaning begins to change as time goes on. Well Carter Reeves latest single One Night Only has gone from a track about celebrating our youth to unintentionally being a social commentary on the world around us due to the Coronavirus.
“I wrote this song in a hungover haze, fresh off the hectic gathering of the night before: Thanksgiving eve,” Carter Reeves explains. “The local restaurant turned into a makeshift bar where we rubbed shoulders with enemies, hashed out petty differences, and reminisced on the simpler times of our youth. You could go months, or years without seeing these people, but right when you’re back together – it’s like nothing ever changed. Although I didn’t intend for this song to be a commentary on today’s situation, it sort of is. We only have one night, let’s live it up to the fullest. It’s an eerie mantra to live by while in quarantine, but our lives are precious – so why not forget it all and have a good time?”
There’s this insatiable groove in this track that just makes you want to get up a dance with the synth beats getting your body swaying and the lush guitar melody only adding to this further. Lyrically it’s quite poignant with these nostalgic flashbacks to your youth before realising how the places you would once frequent now don’t seem the same anymore. It’s a saudade feeling where you can’t believe those times are over but are happy that they at least happened.
The best way to describe this adolescent anthem is that it’s the type of song I’d expect to hear in a modern day John Hughes movie. It’s the perfect song to encourage you to live everyday as if it was your last.
