Eugene

“Eugene” is the 10th track on British singer-songwriter Arlo Parks’ debut album “Collapsed in Sunbeams”. The song was written by Parks with Gianluca Buccellati, who also produced the song.

Parks spoke to Apple Music about the song’s inspiration:

“Eugene” was inspired by seeing a friend struggle with complicated feelings for someone they’d known for years. “That seemed to be quite a common experience for a lot of people around me,” London singer-songwriter Arlo Parks tells Apple Music. “I’d experienced it myself. So I wrote a poem, and then recorded it in this living room with Luca [Buccellati]… I’m very inspired by fine art and by film, like ’90s movies, so imagery is very important to me. I want to make people feel like I’ve just taken a little Polaroid of a moment and make it really vivid so you can live in what I’m seeing—so it feels a bit more real. I’d been listening to a lot of shoegaze-y stuff, but also Portishead and trip-hop stuff. So the drums were really important to me, but at the same time, I wanted to create a dreamy atmosphere.”

The music video was directed by The Coyle-Larner Brothers and is filmed from a birds-eye view, and we are shown Parks and another friend spending time in Park’s room sleeping, reading, listening to records and talking. Throughout the video, Park’s friend becomes more distant, and becomes more attached to a boy and spends more time with him. In the end, Parks and her friend are reunited in bed in each others arms. Since it’s upload in February 2020, the video has over 914 thousand views with over 19 thousand likes.

Release Date: 11th February 2020

Songwriter/s: Arlo Parks & Gianluca Buccellati

Producer: Gianluca Buccellati

Label: Transgressive

Music Video Release Date: 12th February 2020

Music Video Director: The Coyle-Larner Brothers

Chart Rankings: “Eugene” did not manage to secure a place in mainstream charts, however the song is Parks’ most streamed on Spotify, with over 27.6 million global streams.

The lyrics to “Eugene” can be accessed here.

Listen to “Eugene” on Apple Music.

Listen to “Eugene” on Spotify.