Thursday 27th May, 2021
Break-ups are tough. Ask anyone. Better still, listen to I Didn’t Realise, the debut from Australian singer-songwriter Karen Harding, for a version of one.
For years Harding has been performing at cafes and bars around the north-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. Still, it wasn’t until the Covid-19 lockdowns that she began to get serious, receiving inspiration from and connecting with other musicians performing online in Sounds On The Couch.
I Didn’t Realise is a slow burn portrayal of heartache, aided by a spare production job and Harding’s self-assured yet on the cusp of splintering voice—this last characteristic most evident in the chorus. Moments of fragility and vulnerability permeate, imbued as they are to a voice that has undoubtedly had some training.
What we have here is a mixture of refinement and restraint with a dynamic tendency towards emotional release—and the result works for this attempt alone. After all, this is what we want from our artists; facing up to what we—in the guise of the audience—is perhaps tentative, at best, about facing. As Harding says about the history of I Didn’t Realise, ‘Once the song was finished, I realised that these are emotions and experiences that most of us go through, and I was finding that people were connecting with the song.
The track allows others to connect their experiences and then to explore how much they have grown, and I feel like that’s really beautiful.’ From the track’s barebones piano introduction to its chorus dynamics, I Didn’t Realise goes for uncompromised intimacy and pretty much hits the spot.
As Harding says, ‘I hope that the song can be a reflection of the feelings that the listener feels or has felt.. and can help them to reflect on their own experiences and discover how far they have come in their own life experiences.’
