DERMOT KENNEDY APPROACHES LOST LOVE WITH ADMIRATION IN SINGLE + MUSIC VIDEO “SOMETHING TO SOMEONE”

Love is one of, if not the, most ubiquitous topic that artists have tackled since the dawn of time. Whether it’s about falling in love, falling out of love, having one’s heart broken, breaking someone else’s heart, new love, old love — the multitude of songs exploring all the facets of this one emotion would take a millennia to parse through. And yet, with his latest single, “Something to Someone,” Irish singer-songwriter Dermot Kennedy has managed to evoke a more novel approach to the topic: the comfort found in a love lost.

Dermot Kennedy is no stranger to writing and performing love songs, having spent the last decade-plus busking and earning his keep as one of the most promising artists to come out of Ireland this millennium. With sentimentality akin to Vance Joy, raw passion similar to Glen Hansard and a sound — both in vocals and instrumentation — not far removed from Ed Sheeran, Kennedy is a powerhouse musician who emotes in every word he writes. “Something to Someone” is no exception, with lyrics that focus not on the pain from a long-ago heartbreak, but rather the comfort brought about by that love having happened at all. When Kennedy sings at the start, “There’s lessons in love sometimes / The heart is but a winding road / So this story goes,” and then in the pre-chorus, “Oh, you loved me more than anyone / Yeah, we were up so high / We were lost when we were young, but / You were mine,” he acknowledges the sadness of loss while confronting the truth and joy of what this relationship taught him years before. As Kennedy says of the song’s content:

“To be something to someone. To love and be loved in return. What a comforting thought it is to know that no matter what you endure, no matter how lonely the world may seem, you’re still on somebody’s mind. It is the only thing. I want this song to be a reminder to whoever hears it that they are loved.”

To match the song’s subtle pop beats, driving acoustic guitars and dramatic vocals, the music video for “Something to Someone” is a powerful experience. The video features Kennedy singing to the camera, though not as often as one would expect. Instead, most of the imagery focuses on the concept of duality, with Kennedy’s image mirrored halfway down the screen alongside various other images that evoke a sense of love, passion and energy — galloping horses, blooming flowers, intricately-designed rugs and the like. At the same time, there are moments where the image of a shifting rorschach test moves around Kennedy’s platinum-blond head from behind, enhancing the theme of reflections. The images gradually get more and more intense as the song plays out, culminating in one intentionally imperfect image near the end of a couple leaning in to kiss. The song’s message of how love is about togetherness yet uniqueness makes Kennedy’s performance all the more poignant.

“Something to Someone” is the first song Dermot Kennedy has released in 2022 — hopefully, it is a portent of more wonderful music to come. Kennedy just wrapped up a tour of the UK and Ireland in June, and is now on-tour supporting Shawn Mendes on his Wonder The World tour in North America. Dermot Kennedy is also headlining several assorted U.S. tour dates between July 13 and September 16 — you can find out more info here. In the meantime, give a listen to the music video and Spotify for “Something to Someone” below!