Let’s be clear: “Chair” is not a subtle song. It’s not trying to be cool, or slick, or vibey in the way music usually gets when it’s groomed for playlist algorithms and lo-fi study beats compilations. There’s no soft intro to lure you in, no moody slow burn designed to make you really think. Rather, Aleksandra Picariello opens the door and immediately throws you into the middle of the breakdown. Much like her experience, the chair hits the wall; three times. No metaphor, no buildup. Just a moment of raw, unfiltered despair that doesn’t even flinch.
The track centers on a specific, unglamorous kind of emotional collapse: one that happened inside a dual diagnosis rehab facility, triggered by that worst kind of heartbreak; the kind that feels petty until it absolutely isn’t. Someone kissed someone else. Aleksandra snapped. Not in a big Hollywood crescendo kind of way, but in the way people do when they’ve been holding it together for too long and one last minor cruelty makes everything burst. It’s part rage, part grief, and entirely too relatable if you’ve ever stood at the edge of your own mental health unraveling and thought, Yeah, okay, this is it. I’m not okay.
Sonically, “Chair” mirrors that emotional wreckage with production that barely holds itself together. It’s fragile by design. There’s no sweeping string section trying to manipulate you into feeling something. The keys drift like fog. The percussion is more like a suggestion than a beat. The space between the notes feels intentional; room to breathe, to shake, to not know what happens next. Aleksandra’s vocals aren’t pitch-perfect, and that’s the point. They tremble. They falter. They feel like someone trying to recount trauma while still actively processing it. It’s like watching a tightrope walker who doesn’t pretend they’re not terrified.
And that’s what makes “Chair” hit so hard; it doesn’t perform pain, it inhabits it. The lyrics aren’t interested in poetic flourish or catharsis. They’re direct, almost disarmingly plainspoken, which makes them all the more devastating. You don’t get a resolution. You don’t even get a chorus that lets you pretend things will be fine. What you get is someone standing in the ashes of their own coping mechanisms, looking around, and going, Alright. I guess we start here.
“Chair” is the kind of song that feels like a private journal entry accidentally leaked to the world and instead of taking it down, the artist leaves it up and owns up to it. In a music landscape where everyone’s trauma is either aestheticized or monetized into content, Aleksandra Picariello gives us something radically uncool: actual vulnerability.
What’s unnerving is how comforting it all is. Because unlike the endless stream of songs trying to wrap trauma in metaphor and string lights, “Chair” just sits in it. No apology, no tidy arc. It’s honest. It’s not subtle. It’s not marketable. It’s not pretty. But it’s honest in a way that stays with you long after the last note fades, and maybe that’s the whole point. Aleksandra Picariello doesn’t hand you resolution. What she offers instead is witness. And sometimes, that’s what healing actually sounds like; quiet, weird and entirely too human.
Follow Aleksandra Picariello
About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for publications in the US and former lead writer of Atop The Treehouse. Reviews music, film and TV shows for media aggregators.
