“Oh Oh My My” – Coco Reilly
Here we have another song that gratifies through seeming simplicity. Launched off an acoustic-strummed backbeat and a verse that is no more than one lyrical line repeated four times (“Have you ever really loved?”), “Oh Oh My My” has a stately, Harrisonian pensiveness about it. Reilly sings with a reverbed languor that lends a nonchalant authority to her words, particularly as the drumming kicks in with the chorus (0:44).
Best of all, notice how Reilly employs the vaguest of words–“oh oh my my”–as a feint, allowing her to smuggle in some existential musings that strike as deeply as you allow them to go in your own head:
Do you think that you can really ever
Step outside of your mind
Long enough to step into your heart?
And while the song’s general Beatlesque-ishness is easy enough to point to, I hear a lot of Sam Phillips in here as well–the underrated Phillips being herself a master of the Beatlesque when she has wanted to be but with the supplemental oomph of her own musical and lyrical chops. There’s no point in rehashing 50-year-old music for the mere sake of imitation, but there’s always room for new talent to find inspiration in material that has captured cultural and artistic attention for a good deal longer than the latest viral stupidity sensation.
Reilly is a singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, film composer, and producer based in Los Angeles. She has been writing original music, according to one online bio, since she was 10. “Oh Oh My My” is a song from her debut album, scheduled for release later this month. You can stream a few more songs and pre-order the album via Bandcamp.
