Talking about the song, she says: “‘Boy Go’ is about the connection between two people who meet at very different times in their lives which stops them from being together and it creates a distance between them, however they both know an unspoken feeling remains. The lyrics speak of a dream where they have a conversation and are reunited in a moment that feels like happiness but there is an undercurrent of darkness and longing, as they both ask the question of ‘What if?’ without ever getting an answer. ‘Boy Go’ concludes by equally admitting and accepting the present instead of dreaming in the past.

“I wrote ‘Boy Go’ in the autumn of 2022 in Belfast with Ben Robinson and recorded it on the Isle Of Lewis at Black Bay Studios. It was produced by Thom Southern and Duncan Mills. The initial idea for the tone and melody of the song came from the rhythmic swaying of the first three chords I started playing in DADFAD tuning. I’d not previously done any writing in that tuning and the baggy, earthy elements that can be translated from it became a huge inspiration for my songwriting at that time.”

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The inner conflict that stems from wanting two distinct things at once runs like a thread through much of Lucy Gaffney’s songwriting. The impossibly earworming ‘Make Me Smile’ is a textbook case in point. Here, dreams of living in an old, empty house without a care in the world contrast with a competing desire for someone to share it with.

“I’m really into architecture and the space where you live and dreaming where you could live,” says Gaffney. “This song is about wanting to belong and to escape at the same time. It’s about the darker side of yourself when you feel lost but it’s also about wanting someone to connect with.”

True to her knack for blending different elements of unfinished songs, ‘Make Me Smile’ is a feat of forging quiet with loud and heavy with soft. “A lot of my songwriting will start soft because it’s often easier to write melodies like that,” says Gaffney. “My brother Thom and I were messing around at the time with big guitar sounds and really wanted to make a song that would make people dance. I had a melody from another track and it just transformed it.”

Just as there are many sides to everybody, this song feels like a representation of Lucy Gaffney’s grittier element – like PJ Harvey’s ‘Down By The Water’ or ‘Song 2’ by Blur. Ultimately this track is all about letting loose.

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‘Just Friends’ explores the curious, often unpredictable relationship between love and belonging, connection and becoming. “Starry-eyed and mystified,” Gaffney masterfully filters the delicate dance between uncertainty and excitement that tends to come with new beginnings

“I was quite sad when I wrote this,” she says. “I had moved to Liverpool on my own to a new apartment. I didn’t know anyone there at the time so I felt completely isolated. So this song is about allowing yourself the time to understand where you are and actually connect with it.”

It could easily have seeped in melancholy but hard-earned optimism anchors the song’s burrowing indie-pop. It’s a defining quality that runs parallel with an almost touchable sense of Gaffney’s lived experience in Liverpool. Here, Prince’s Park and Hope Street carry as much evocative power as the neon-lit utopia of the Japanese capital.

“‘Just Friends’ started out as a kind of dreamy love song before becoming a love song to a city,” says Gaffney. “I was walking around Hope Street and I remembered what I loved about Liverpool and its character. It feels like an innocent song to me when I listen to it. There is this excitement to a new place in the pit of your stomach when you’re on your own. But there can be an excitement to the anonymity of it all.”

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Lucy Gaffney is no newcomer to the power of patience and pure intention. The Belfast native began releasing solo material in 2020, with two well-received lo-fi offerings recorded by The Coral frontman James Skelly. Fast forward to 2023 and ‘Daydream In Tokyo’ luminously marks her arrival. The first single from her upcoming second EP, it’s a pure-cut indie-pop gem every bit as Technicolour as Gaffney’s journey along the way.

Written when she was living in Liverpool, the song is an escapist anthem with a trajectory that takes you on a journey. Across three minutes, it captures how a potent sense of place far beyond can – even in one’s mind’s eye – be an antidote to the mundane. But for Gaffney, dreaming of Tokyo isn’t a knee-jerk lunge in the throes of wanderlust. Musing on walking through neon-lit streets, and singing ‘Thirteen’ by Big Star in a backstreet karaoke bar, it bears the physical imprint of the Japanese capital as channelled in her favourite film, Lost In Translation.

“I’ve always adored and been fascinated by its cinematography,” says Gaffney. “There’s so much depth in the mystery and ambiguity of discovering a foreign place. I find it hard not to completely relate to every scene. I can’t write unless there’s something inspiring me visually, so I wanted it to capture the aesthetic of the movie and, in a similar way, translate a relatability in everyday thoughts and relationships between people.”

Nodding to Bowie’s ‘China Girl,’ and jangle-pop gems like ‘There She Goes’ by The La’s and The Pretenders’ ‘Brass In Pocket’ as influences for its classic style and structure – along with the subtle but powerful approach of contemporary artists like beabadoobee, Phoebe Bridgers and girl in red – the single is a feat of full-blown indie-pop finesse. It may not be the case for all of Gaffney’s songs but ‘Daydream In Tokyo’ is open-hearted and idealist to its core. It also doubles as an invitation to dig deeper and discover the full spectrum of her sound.

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