The Hardest Thing…is waiting for this album to drop
Cast yourself back to 2022.
The shackles of the Covid-19 pandemic finally start to lift from the fears of our minds, and the feeling to get out into the world again is a powerful force to reckon with.
You decide to go on a bush walk with friends, and someone chucks on the newest Julia Jacklin record that just dropped.
The pianos of ‘Love, Try Not To Let Go’ start echoing out of the speaker while the birds chirp their song to the coming air of Spring.
This memory will stay with you forever.
Now, almost exactly four years later, Julia Jacklin has dropped the third single from her next project, The Gem, and it’s truly shaping up to be a jewel within her discography.
Following the release of the heart-plucking ‘Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You Soon)’ and the ever so gentle and beautiful ‘I Wish’ collab with The Maes, comes ‘The Hardest Thing’.
And it’s undoubtedly the best single to date.
Similar to the first single, the track embodies the fun, sunny and jangle rocky sonic palette that Jacklin now sits in as she battles the repelling nature of love and independence.
On this very topic, she shared that “I want to love and be loved, but I also want to be free. The tension between those two things has been the central question of my life”.
The Gem serves as her search for the answer to that.
It’s clear that this newest single is in dialogue with that concept, with the lines “The hardest thing to do is believe it when you say, ‘I love you’ / The hardest thing to do is stick around trying to convince you” dominating the chorus.
Alongside the single comes a brand new music video, which starts as a seemingly random helicopter shot of the Melbourne city line, before slowly circling and zooming in on Jacklin performing atop the Australia 108 building.
The video is a special one-take from Danny Cohen, who has notably filmed videos for Australian acts like Courtney Barnett, Kirin J Callinan and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard.
The Gem gets unearthed on September 9, but until then ‘The Hardest Thing’ will stand as the perfect banger to fill the time.
