LAURA DANNAN – LITTLE GREY

Here at the Send Me Your Ears studio, we’ve been listening today to Laura Dannan’s latest single, Little Grey, released on January 20th, 2023.

We loved Laura’s previous single, Mid Life Crisis – a quirky and humorous rant about the troubles and issues of mid-life, so we were thrilled to see this track hit the top of the reviews pile today. Were the team about to be led into another witty, Pam Ayres-inspired song, or is there more to Dannan than unconventional humour songs?

Little Grey comes straight in with Laura’s charming voice. Intimate and inviting, her voice is raw and unaffected. You can clearly hear her accent in the song and each lyric is delivered with care and precision.

The production on this song is lo-fi and that is half the charm of it. An endearing performance where the guitar strums away in the background, and the voice, almost a poem set to music, fills your ears as you enjoy every word clearly. There are no additions, no harmonies, no extra instruments. This is Laura Dannan doing what she does best, and we love it.

Little Grey brought out an emotional response in all of the team here at Send Me Your Ears. A love song with a truly unexpected subject matter. The concept reminded us of Queen’s, Delilah, in that you are quite a long way into the song before you realise that Freddie is singing about his cat; “And then you make me slightly mad when you pee all over my Chippendale Suite.” It’s not until this point in the song that you realise this is no ordinary love song!

Little Grey is the same. For a while, we thought it might be about a dog who’d passed away or had to be given up. The song oozes emotion and heartfelt feelings of loss and regret. We were pretty much welling up before we realised that Little Grey is about Laura’s car. The moment you do realise that (we never like to read a biography before we listen), the song takes on a slightly lighter feeling in your head, but the emotion is very real nonetheless.

“The diesel inside you wasn’t so green so I swapped you for an electric blue.”

Little Grey is a song from a true artist. Good art makes you feel something and whilst Laura’s previous offering, Midlife Crisis, made us laugh out loud, Little Grey displays a depth to her creativity that shoots Laura to the top of our “ones to watch in 2023.”

There is a definite market for this style of music. Its lo-fi production is endearing and the simplicity of the guitar playing is almost irrelevant. It is the lyrics that are the key to the success of this track.
A surprising contender for one of our favourites this month and an artist we’ll be keeping a close eye on in the future.