Navigating life isn’t as easy as it sounds and Caleb Hearn perfectly depicted it in his new album Left On McKinney. According to his Nettwerk Music album description, the North Carolina-born artist, at 24 years old, recently uncovered a newfound freedom in his songwriting, vowing to let go of long-standing fears. “I’ve always aimed for honesty and openness in my music, but in the past, I worried about how people would react if I revealed too much about my life,” Hearn explains. “Over the past year, I realized that if my honesty can help even one person, it’s worth it.” In a significant evolution from his self-released breakout single Always Be 2.0, Hearn’s latest album Left on McKinney talks deeply into personal challenges, including his struggle with panic disorder and the uncertainties of growing up. Rooted in his distinctive blend of folk-pop, the album shines a light on these difficult experiences, revealing Hearn’s vulnerability and emotional depth. With Left on McKinney, Hearn places himself among a rising generation of artists unafraid to confront their inner lives through music. His candidness and courage not only resonate with listeners but also mark a pivotal moment in his artistic journey, where he embraces his truth to create music that is both deeply personal and universally relatable.
Klonopin is the song that welcomes the listeners to the album. Along with its hearty instrumental and guitar strums, it sings about one’s dependency on someone they love so much. This might be relatable to many because when we love, we would love to serve them, to give them our all, and for our world to revolve around them. Although this song might also depict the sweet side of it, it talks more about how it might be suffocating for the one you’re loving and harmful to yourself. It is immediately followed by Last Breath, a song that gives off “wedding song” vibes. Its lyricism and instrumental are soothing and comforting, especially because it carries the words of how someone assures a lifetime of loving and not getting tired of it. The third song, Little Bit Better, sings about meeting and being with someone who has the same wavelength and vibe as you do. It features the artist ROSIE, which makes the song more romantic because their collaboration feels like a conversation being spoken to one another, giving wedding vows vibes.
The fourth song, with its melancholic instrumentals, is If It Wasn’t for You. It sounded and felt like a post-breakup song where it talks about how one person can make or break you as an individual, how someone who’s once a stranger can have a huge impact over your life. Following the theme of hurting after loving, Warm Body then shifted to the start of building a relationship with someone. The song talks about the anxiety on starting a relationship and building a life with someone. Because of our human nature to nurture and care a lot, this song perfectly depicts how hard it is to take a risk on love if it will eventually end up with both of you getting hurt.
With Get There When I Get There, the song encourages us to live in the present. It reminds us that the past and the present won’t matter if you are taking the present for granted. The song encourages us to breathe, to not stress about our past actions and dilemmas, and not overthink about our future, because eventually, it will also come. We will go back to talking about relationships with Strangers Yet. It talks about the decaying of a relationship between two people, either romantic or platonic. It talks about how sometimes, connections fade and it is just meant to end in the first place.
Left on McKinney is the last song, and is just the perfect song to end the listening experience for this album with the same title. Hearn talked about the whirlwind of life in the past songs, and this one talks about the comfort of finding a place, a familiar one that is. That no matter how noisy and messy our life can get, we can always have a place or a person to relax with or on when it gets a little bit too much.
Caleb Hearn’s album is such an experience and is deserving to be heard more. If you also want to hear about his musings in life, make sure to check his music streaming platforms profile, and also follow him on his social media accounts.
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Abot the Author
Angel Mariah Rodiel – Mari to the people she’s fond of – is a BA Literature student currently studying in Central Luzon State University. Writing, arts, and music are some of the things she’s been most passionate about ever since she was a kid. Mari’s little dream is to build a band that will open for Paramore’s concert someday. Pop-punk and alternative rock are her comfort music genres, K-pop and J-rock comes close as third and fourth.
