In her new single, Toronto-based artist Brooklyn Doran returns home, capturing within the song's guitar-led minutes the most relatable feeling of walking familiar streets after a long journey. “This Town Won’t Miss You” is all at once a sad love song, an ode to youth, and an excruciating account of how things change.
In the single’s video, Doran peers through the window of her grandma’s old house, only to regret it when realizing her memories don't reflect reality. When COVID-19 shut down Toronto in 2020 Doran traveled back to her hometown in northern Ontario. “It felt like visiting an old flame after moving on,” Doran says about the experience. “It was bizarrely the same, but also something really fundamental had shifted for me in coming back having lived so far away for so long.” You can spot the nods to small town nostalgia in the wide shots and close ups of the video. Snowbank-lined empty highways, old churches, the now-closed down bars you used to black out in, as Doran’s lyrics say.
“This Town Won’t Miss You” is all of us returning somewhere after a long time away, remembering the backseats and the old haunts. Doran longing for the past with mascara trail tears while driving old cars will conjure up sentimentality regardless of where your hometown is.
Photo credit: The Letterelle Photography
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