After losing his mother, father, and brother all in one year, 24-year-old Clinton Kane turns his personal trauma into art with his debut album Maybe Someday It’ll All Be OK. The Australian singer-songwriter takes us along his journey towards self-discovery, channeling themes of adolescence, romance and mourning into 9 tracks.
Kane’s album begins with a title-track voice memo that sets the album up with a hopeful note, despite the darkness he’s endured. The gentle finger-picking on the acoustic guitar in the background eases the uncertainty in his words: “I don’t know / Maybe it’ll all be okay.” Kane explained in an official statement that the title emerged from a phone call with a friend: “It wasn’t too depressing, but not too optimistic either, and I’ve always felt like I live in that grey area – that juxtaposition between hopefulness and hopelessness.” And the album lives in that space too.
“14”, a dense musical memoir thematically reminiscent of Lukas Graham’s “7 Years,” explores Kane’s struggle with insecurity. The simple syncopated accompaniment directs our focus to Kane’s personal lyrics, amplifying his sparse transitions to a vulnerable falsetto. Kane unleashes his forceful belt on the chorus as he cries “I wish I was somebody else / Just to feel like I’m enough for myself.”
We sympathize with Kane as he delves into the highs and lows of romantic relationships. In “I Guess I’m In Love,” the butterflies of a new love are illustrated in the chorus’s dreamy piano chords and orchestral strings. This love later turns to angst in “Go to Hell,” with an angry distorted guitar to complement Kane’s fiery vocals as he sings about a cheating partner.
Yet, what sets Kane apart from similar emotionally-driven pop artists —such as Dean Lewis and Lewis Capaldi— is his transparency about his toxic relationship with his mother. The uplifting high notes in the guitar pattern heard in “Chicken Tendies” underscore lyrics that explore their damaged bond. Kane revealed on TikTok that the song is a bittersweet acceptance of his mother’s commitment to God and religion, despite the parental neglect he experienced as a result. He reminisces about their positive memories together before her passing in “One More Day with You,” his lamenting vocals and piano chords thick with denial as he repeats “Can’t let you go.”
“I Wish I Could Hate You for Breaking Me and Calling It Love” completes the album, releasing all of his pent-up anger towards his mother’s abandonment. The pain is heard in Kane’s strained voice, as well as his audible gasps for air in between phrases. The instrumentation is the heaviest on this song, with hard hitting drums and guitar that build with his frustration. The album closes with a heartbreaking question, “Why couldn’t I be enough?”
Maybe Someday It’ll All Be OK is Clinton Kane’s musical diary of his trauma. In sharing his story with the world, his raw sound and honest lyrics exemplify to his fans that whatever we may go through, we are not alone.