Upon its release last week, on Instagram and other social-media sites, British songstress Lucy Rose dedicated “Pink” to “anyone out there who wasn’t believed.” The song delves into how assertions of not feeling well, especially when made by women, are sometimes dismissed as psychosomatic babble from those who should know better, medical professionals: “If you had to question me like this/You never knew me, for me/I wonder what made you turn your back/When I was in most, most need.” It’s moody, mid-tempo and frenetic in spots, the kind of piano-led track that floods the brain with dopamine.
The inspiration for the song, at least in part, is obvious, as it mines similar thematic terrain as her last LP, the insta-classic This Ain’t the Way to Go Out: A few years back, after giving birth to her first child, Rose was gripped by an unbearable back pain that a doctor claimed was in her head. It wasn’t. In fact, she suffered from pregnancy and lactation-associated osteoporosis, a condition that impacts one in 250,000 new mothers. It wasn’t diagnosed until she self-funded an MRI that revealed eight fractures in her back.
That the fallout from such situations contaminates more than just the doctor-patient relationship shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Empathy and understanding are in short supply, these days, including from some we mistakenly consider friends: “Well nothing breaks a heart like a friend/Were we ever mates, my mistake/You were so damn cold, I trusted the wrong sort/Now I only have myself to blame.”
The genius of the song is that, though inspired by Rose’s specific situation, it applies to anyone who’s faced similar doubts from friends, family members and so-called authority figures—doctors, law-enforcement officers, you name it. That it sports an intoxicating melody only adds to its luster. In retrospect, she should have included a warning in that Instagram post: One listen will beget two, three and more, and before you know it you’ll have spent half a day lost in the jazzy pop that is “Pink.”
The Old Grey Cat 