The opening lyrics to Boh Doran’s remarkably engrossing new guitar-pop single “On Fire” hit like a ton of bricks, emblazoned with “Courtesy of 2020” on the side of each and every one: “Can’t pretend to like making dinner / I’m irritable and I hit a wall / Most days I drown in my coffee / From no sleep / Feelin’ lost.”
From there, the Los Angeles singer-songwriter swan dives into life in 2020 and all its changes and continuations, capturing our daily frustrations, hopes, and curiosities over what tomorrow brings — and the uneasy fear of it being the same as today. It’s a lush, cathartic track swirling around emotional exploration and self-acceptance, and stylistically throws back to ’90s alt-rock and ’00s indie-folk.
“This was the first song I started writing during quarantine,” Doran says. “I was going through a complete life change. Everything happened so fast — I had a surprise kid, was suddenly a mom, and then put on lockdown for the first six months of Rocket’s life (my son) when I had already been on ‘lockdown’ for nine months of pregnancy. With no end of staying at home in sight, my new normal was a complete 180 from my previous musician, Los Angeles lifestyle. The song is about all the feelings I wanted to put away, but sometimes ended up bursting out anyway, i.e ‘on fire.'”
Light a match below.