“Pain” by PinkPantheress

Considering that most of the lyrics of this already terse song consist of improvised harmonizing (i.e. “la-la-la”), the actual story contained therein is really short in terms of wording. 

And what it basically boils down to is the vocalist being in what we can call a tumultuous relationship with the addressee. Said addressee, who would be her ex, reads as someone who she is no longer officially with yet still plays a role in the narrator’s life nonetheless.  In other words she is having a hard time getting over him. 

The two of them parting ways was apparently based on his actions. And yes, Pink was under the impression that their relationship would last longer than it actually did. But it would appear that the final reason they couldn’t maintain is due to irreconcilable personal differences. And whereas the vocalist is mature enough to understand and to some degree accept that reality, she is still in emotional “pain” as a result.

PinkPantheress

As of the release of this track on 29 January 2021, PinkPantheress appears to be on the verge of gaining mainstream notoriety. Up until this point those who would primarily be familiar with her are social media users like TikTokers, as the songstress already had one track, “Break It Off” (2021), go viral on said platform. 

And apparently “Pain” also falls into that category, i.e. a song that has been embraced well on social media. Also its visual, as posted on YouTube, has garnered nearly 1,000,000 views, as of the writing of this post.

Who really is PinkPantheress?

PinkPantheress hails from London and is 20 years old as of the release of this track. And again, little is known about her at the moment, as she reads as an independent artist who sort of blew up out of nowhere (i.e. thanks to TikTok and SoundCloud). 

But that said, she has recently been signed to Parlophone Records, which is perhaps the top record label based in the United Kingdom. And to note, she has yet to release any sort of album or mixtape.

PinkPantheress wrote and produced this song herself. She actually traces her unique moniker back to the username she registered on TikTok. And she got into songwriting during her high school years after initially assisting a friend in that regard.

There are plenty of ‘la-la-la’s’ in this song. According to the songstress, that is because she was suffering from “the worst writer’s block” at the time.

More about PinkPantheress

PinkPantheress produces her own music.  And in that regard she has made a name for herself as one of those types of artists who regularly samples and creatively other musicians’ work. For instance, on her 2020 track “Just a Waste”, she made use of Michael Jackson’s 1979 classic Off the Wall. Also on the aforementioned “Break It Off”, she sampled a track called Circles by another British musician named Adam F. 

And “Pain” utilizes an even older piece, an instrumental dating back to the 19^th century entitled Gymnopédie (1888) by French pianist Erik Satie (1866-1925).

In terms of who her own favorite British pop artists are, PinkPantheress has expressed a strong admiration for Imogen Heap and Lily Allen, referring to them as “legendary women”. And she also seems to be somewhat infatuated with Charli XCX.

As of the writing of this post, Pinkpantheress’s YouTube channel has a little over 30,000 subscribers. She also has 70,000 registered fans on Instagram and boasts of nearly 300,000 followers on TikTok, where her current tagline is “I fancy Evan Peters”.

The songstress traces part of her ancestry back to Kenya.