When I was much younger, I had a journal in which I would log, with great detail, what I was listening to at any given time. I’d write little blurbs about what was happening in my life at the time, as one does. A journal entry from 2015 archived an embarrassingly humbling cocktail of post-adolescent angst and early adulthood confusion, as Courtney Barnett’s Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit echoed through the halls of my first apartment. As the thrumming of the album’s opening track, “Elevator Operator” spilled out from my haphazardly patchworked stereo system obtained from various yard sales and hand-me-down equipment, my freshly 21-year-old self felt incredibly understood.
Released in March of 2015, Barnett’s debut album is cleverly fashioned with endearingly authentic observations of the ludicrous world around her. Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit captures a very specific era of Barnett’s career and life, pre-dating 2018’s more intimate Tell Me How You Really Feel. On SISAT, SIJS, the Australian DIY artist’s allegorical songwriting touches on the most relatable bases pertaining to the spoils of existence– from existential dread and despondency, to self-doubt and embarrassment, and much more. Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit cements the somewhat comforting reality that we’re all just human beings trucking through life, and that none of us truly know what the fuck we’re actually doing here.
The first track catalogs a day in the life of a young man, Oliver, who is effectively exhausted by the current chapter of his life, which is inexplicably mundane. As Oliver rebelliously prances through an unnamed city (presumably Melbourne), skipping work, he finds himself in an elevator with an older woman, who mistakenly accuses him of self-destruction as they both head for the rooftop. Our protagonist corrects her: “I think you’re projecting the way that you’re feeling / I’m not suicidal, just idling insignificantly / I come up here for perception and clarity / I like to imagine I’m playing Sim City.”
“I try to keep my eyes open and take it all in when I see things,” Barnett shared in an interview with DIY Magazine, in regard to her vivid lyricism. “Even if I do see something I love, I forget I walked by it straight away, but I always remember the feeling that things give me. I keep a little book and write down absolutely everything.”
“Pedestrian at Best” is riddled with astutely contradicting claims in regards to Barnett’s relationship with her career and creativity. “Erroneous, harmonious, I’m hardly sanctimonious,” she sings in the final verse. A less-desirable consequence of creative success is what is often referred to as “imposter syndrome.” Throughout the track, Barnett spouts self-deprecating quips about her own character, making the track one of the most relatable on the album.
In an interview with Interview Magazine, Barnett shared the oftentimes turbulent process involved with creation, saying, “The month afterwards of mixing and listening to [the album] and making sure I still liked it, I had weeks of going, ‘I fucking hate it! I need to re-record it. It’s terrible.’ And then the next week I’m like, ‘It’s actually great! You’re being too hard on yourself.’ It was this back and forth thing and I’ve got very high expectations of myself. You don’t know if it’s based on other people’s opinions, what you’re thinking, or if you’re going completely mental.”
In “An Illustration of Loneliness (Sleepless in New York),” a personal favorite, Barnett sings of moments in which we feel most isolated. Late nights spent staring at the sky, “Wondering what you’re doing, what you’re listening to / Which quarter of the moon you’re viewing from your bedroom.” Despite being possibly the most mystifying facet of being a human– even when surrounded by other humans– loneliness is painfully universal.
“I don’t know quite who I am, but man I am trying,” Barnett sings in “Small Poppies,” over emotionally driven, lengthy riffs. Soldiering a barrage of accusations from critics and tastemakers calling the artist’s music “slacker rock” (whatever the fuck that means), she lets it all out on “Small Poppies.” In a track-by-track rundown of SISAT, SIJS for NBHAP, Barnett shared some insights into the track. “Have you heard of Tall Poppy Syndrome?” she asked. “It’s cutting down people who are successful, bringing them down to your level. It’s a well-known Australian expression: If someone is doing really well, you tell them they suck to bring them back down to earth. The song just deals with people having strong opinions about things.”
“Depreston,” “Dead Fox” and “Kim’s Caravan” are written from the powerless citizen’s perspective of society, covering topics of housing crises, food deserts in lower-income areas and the environmental impact of capitalism. She’s described “Dead Fox” as “a consumerism criticism,” in which she sings: “Never having too much money, I get the cheap stuff at the supermarket / But they’re all pumped up with the shit / A friend told me that they stick nicotine in the apples.” In “Kim’s Caravan,” Barnett alludes to feelings of helplessness during times of ecological destruction, singing, “I drank ’til I was sinking, sank ’til I was thinking / That I’m thankful for this view.”
“Aqua Profunda!” and “Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Go to the Party” display charming relatability, as she sings of an awkward encounter with a crush at a public pool and preferring to stay in rather than attending a social function. “I don’t like meeting lots of people that I don’t know, it makes me nervous,” Barnett told NBHAP. “I am more one of the making-an-excuse-to-not-go-out-person. Sometimes, the next day I actually have the feeling I missed something, but whatever. I like my own time.”