Around this time of year, nostalgia tinges every scene of spring unfurling into summer. The end of my school years comes to mind as well as the mundanity of my summer vacations. I think of the friends I loved, the ones I knew everything about, that I’ll never know again. What’s imprinted the most in my memory is the music shared. I think of my best friend playing New Slang by The Shins for me when we were sixteen, and find that delightful feeling again in listening to When You Were It. It’s the new single of Skinny Dippers, the indie-rock project fronted by Brooklyn-based artist Ryan Gross. Originally from Maine, Gross’s coastal sensibilities lend themselves well to his approach to music, with a steady catalogue of dream-pop, acoustic-leaning tunes dating back to 2020.
The song’s soothing guitar and tempo lull the listener into a headfirst dive into nostalgia, honeying memories in the light chords and Gross’s soothing vocals. Instead of hurrying to get to lines or the chorus, Skinny Dippers take a breath. A moment to relax, to let the verses sink in with the entirety of their emotional weight. When You Were It could be a bittersweet response to the reassuring lyrics and melody of COIN’s Let It All Out. It holds the same sentimental fragments as Hippo Campus’s South. Upon first listen, my fourteen-year-old self simply loved the upbeat, whimsical notes and the way it simply exuded summer. When I listen back to that song and so many more, I hear my adolescence ringing back to me. When You Were It nudges the listeners into scenes of skinned knees and playgrounds, all while considering the time well spent.
The highlight of the song is the chorus line in “I’ll forget what you said / I’ll forget what you did / But I’ll never forget when you were it” plays to the famous Maya Angelou quote (“…people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”), which, incidentally, is used by countless students as their senior quotes each year.
When You Were It paints the growing and changing of coming of age delicately, harkening back to the times spent with people that perhaps don’t speak, from places they’ll never go to again. But through years snaking across streets, the love is still there.
Written by Mira Dhillon
