Nineteen-year-old upcoming singer-songwriter Ella Jane started her career in 2020, and while “bored&blind” is only her fourth single, all her music has something in common: bold basslines, lilting lyricism and idyllic indie pop beats that have solidified her as a musical talent to keep an eye on.
Ella Jane began her career when she released her first single, “The City,” in February 2020. A little over a year since its release, the electric pop hit with a strong drum piece and beating bassline has accumulated 3 million streams on Spotify.
She followed up the hit with her most popular song yet, “nothing else i could do,” which was released in July of 2020 and has surpassed 4 million streams on Spotify. Based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” the song is a bass-heavy, synth pop masterpiece that has skyrocketed Ella Jane into indie pop stardom.
Her third single, titled “AUGUST IS A FEVER,” came out in November 2020. It features more bass, drums and synth pop beats, as well as Ella Jane’s remarkable lyricism that’s rife with extended metaphors.
Now, Ella Jane has released her fourth single, “bored&blind,” her first release of 2021. Much like her other singles, “bored&blind” is chock-full of romantic lyricism, consuming basslines and artful metaphors. She released “bored&blind” on March 4, and it has since accumulated a little under 400,000 streams on Spotify.
The song begins with her clear voice, which is followed by plucky guitar strings. Ella Jane sings, “I guess I’ve just been watching your mouth / try to form the words of a love song / and honey, will you sing it for me? / Get it stuck inside my head / cutting letters out of a magazine / I write myself a ransom love note instead.”
She introduces the theme of the song with an allegorical poem where she describes loving someone who doesn’t love her back. Instead of hearing a love song from her interest’s perspective, she pieces their thoughts together to form an imagined love letter.
Throughout the verse, Ella Jane is able to create competing guitar beats and harmonizing drum lines that form an electronic pop sound akin to the indie/alt pop genre. Her chorus follows the same line, but she adds life with generated sound palettes and bass to create an upbeat refrain.
Ella Jane’s chorus states, “Well, how many figures / Will it take for you to bring me back my heart? / ’cause right now it’s sittin’ in your basement / hidden in the back with some stolen art / and hey, Mona Lisa / while you’re smiling, will you give him one for me? / ‘Cause I locked myself inside his coffin / and I was dumb еnough / To throw away the —”
Following along the line of crime, the chorus references a stolen heart as well as stolen art and extortion along with the previous ransom note. Along the same vein of imaginative love songs, Ella Jane speaks of willingly locking herself away in a coffin, much like how she wrote her own ransom love note.
The second verse of “bored&blind” follows the theme of unrequited love. Ella Jane sings, “Well honestly it’s kind my fault / I’vе been wastin’ my time / but I would rather watch you from miles away / than be a little closer and bored (and blind) / and when I’m lookin’ at you / everything disappears / And lovin’ gets a little bit lonelier / but loneliness was never my biggest fear.”
The alliteration of “Lovin’ gets a little bit lonelier” adds to the poetic lyricism that Ella Jane brings to unrequited love. Along with that, she brings idyllic romanticism to loving from afar with the subsequent line, “Loneliness was never my biggest fear.”
Along with Ella Jane’s melodious lyricism, she repeats the musical backing from her first verse: plucky guitars, harmonizing drums and a strong bassline, emphasizing the live sound palette over the synthesized one that’s featured in the chorus.
The chorus repeats with added tambourines, echoing drums, strong basslines and the featured bold guitar lines. The bridge begins and ends with repetition. Ella Jane sings, “Don’t you wanna read my letter? / Maybe you’d like to know me better … know me better / know me better.”
The first two lines repeat themselves an additional two times after its original introduction before ending with even more repetition. Much like how the verses focus on the live instrumental sounds of the song, the bridge focuses on the electronic pop angle that the song emphasizes.
The chorus is repeated yet again, restating that she was “dumb enough to throw away the key” to his coffin, locking herself inside. This last repeated chorus is where Ella Jane shines vocally, with an impressive descending run on the word “art,” as well as sustained notes during the repetition of “throw away the key.”
Ella Janes ends “bored&blind” with an outro that repeats the bridge while synthesizing the electronic pop beat and the instrumental theme to create a unique indie pop sound. The backing ends abruptly with Ella Jane’s a capella, clear voice as it was featured at the beginning of the song, creating a cyclical sound that emphasizes the repeating pattern of unrequited love.
Ella Jane originally wrote “bored&blind” when she was just 16 years old. Three years later, she perfected the song to create a juxtaposition between the youthfulness of its musical production and the maturity of its complex lyrics. Moreover, she creates an indie pop hit by combining the synthesized sound of a pop melody with the upbeat tempo and percussive guitar of DIY indie pop punk.
Ella Jane’s musical abilities do not come as a shock, as she is the daughter of a jazz pianist. According to her Spotify bio, she took her first steps when “fumbling to a syncopated swing beat.” Her “musical genetics” may have led her to singing and songwriting, but her musical legacy rests upon her talent for writing captivating poems and tuneful indie pop melodies.
