Can’t Stay Can’t Go cover art by Lizzie // courtesy of LUCKYYOU

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Can’t Stay Can’t Go by LUCKYYOU is a song I’m incredibly excited to review. I heard just 10 seconds of the intro off an Instagram Reel teaser, and immediately reached out to LUCKYYOU to ask if they’d like some pre-release press.

This review’s even more of a treat than my interview with LUCKYYOU – at the end, we’ll get to pick guitarist Ethan’s brain as the songwriter (including how he first thought of this song while on the toilet). For our returning readers, you’ll notice this is a bit of a new format we’re experimenting with – you can think of these as bonus quotes from yesterday’s interview!

Now, without further ado, let’s dive right into their debut single.

Journalistic Disclaimer: While discussing pre-release press, I was invited to share feedback on some preliminary mixes of the track. This review remains my honest, uninfluenced opinion.

Production & Arrangement of "Can't Stay Can't Go" by LUCKYYOU

Can’t Stay Can’t Go opens with a gritty bass that fades in, and then a harmonic that leads us straight to the high-energy, full-band intro. My first thought is that, while a great studio single, this track is definitely meant to be played live – fitting, for a band like LUCKYYOU that takes huge pride in their stage presence. I know I’d be hyped up in the audience, hearing that distinctive intro!

The arrangement is tight, no matter where in the song I skip to. There’s never a redundant part or empty feeling anywhere, and steady development throughout to keep things sonically interesting – a credit to their collaborative arrangement process. Their bassist, Kae, describes it as everyone pitching in for their own instrument, while keeping an eye on the song as a whole – and the track is better for it.

If we can forgive a little technical talk here, arrangement is how the various elements of the song come together – whether you’re adding things or taking them out. LUCKYYOU lets every instrument have their moment: the intro is full-out with everyone playing, Verse 1 is piano with a palm-muted distorted rhythm guitar, pre-chorus is sweeping single strums from the distorted guitar, so on and so forth. As listeners, we enjoy the sonic variety presented within a single track too!

Speaking of guitar, I also appreciate the rhythm guitar tone as a guitarist myself. It goes for a lot more fuzz and mid-end than I usually prefer, which is best heard in the verses yet merges nicely into the explosion that is the chorus.

The guitar solo after the chorus also retains the slight shimmery jangle for extra texture. It’s not really echoing any motif from the song, but it is well-placed and fitting, sweeping from lower to higher strings. Throughout the record, both guitars are surprisingly never fatiguing or overstimulating, and definitely work to cut through the mix nicely.

The chorus in particular has so much ear candy that I find myself focusing on a different instrument every listen. The most noticeable element to me is the guitar arpeggios, which work with the vocal to fill any gaps without overpowering. It’s a tricky balance to strike between riffs and not overloading the track, and a credit of mixer Timothy Liew Leo Matias and producer Kaiser Teo to walk this line so well.

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LUCKYYOU / Photo credit: @charsiewfan65 on Instagram, courtesy of LUCKYYOU

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Songwriting behind "Can't Stay Can't Go"

Ethan tells me he wanted to “write about the social side of a breakup, because that’s part of the weirdness of it all — the way that someone can put on a ‘perfect’ or ‘innocent’ face to the world, while you’re the only one who knows the truth.” He traces the story from Verse 1, where he’s looking back on “how ‘perfectly’ someone can play a role” – and then in Verse 2, when “that starts to fall away”.

It’s always a treat to see a song that manages to hold coherent lyrics telling a story with a head-bopping arrangement, so much credit is due to LUCKYYOU there.

Having a male and female vocalist is then definitely a boon for LUCKYYOU. The duet harmony in the chorus makes the sound so much richer and more varied across ranges, and in terms of the storyline, it showcases both sides of the breakup – moving from male, to male with female backing, and female with male backing across the song.

The bridge is “an acknowledgement that, yeah, the memories haven’t faded out of the melodies yet” – which certainly explains the stripped production for that part of the song, with only a kick, piano, and vocals for most of it. It’s a brief reprieve before jumping right back into high-octane rock, including one last chorus before a breakdown full of vocalisations – and lyrically, the song ends there.

As a songwriter, I find that very intriguing. There’s no real resolution to this storyline they’ve built up – and Ethan calls that an intentional choice that “sets Can’t Stay Can’t Go apart from the other songs [LUCKYYOU has] been working on”. He specifically sought to make the track “lack the ‘clean’ pop ending where the hero walks away with [their] head held high”.

And – ouch, doesn’t that hurt? Especially the “betrayal of the body” (what a lovely way Ethan put it during our interview), where your mind knows that this breakup happened for a reason… but you still “tremble when we touch”.

Pop-rock and punk-rock fans certainly won’t be disappointed, and Can’t Stay Can’t Go is so catchy it’ll be stuck in your head. If this sounds like a song right up your alley (or you’ve had the misfortune of breaking up with someone recently…), you can head on right over to Spotify to stream it here.

And if you’re looking to tune in for more of LUCKYYOU, it’s your lucky day – you can find them on Instagram @luckyyousg, on TikTok @luckyyousg, and right here on IAAS for an exclusive interview.

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