Where you come from, who you become: Gatlin’s 'The Eldest Daughter' is here
- blondevibrations
- Oct 8
- 6 min read
Gatlin's debut album, 'The Eldest Daughter', is an ode to becoming. This album is a tender exploration of identity, family, and the courage it takes to unlearn what no longer fits even when things can, at times, feel crippling.
Gatlin has honed in on her ability to offer a gut punch through her lyrics, with standout lines like ‘I don’t even wanna be someone's wife. But I still get sick when it sinks in / I'm always the one before the one for life’ telling you everything you need to know about the emotional weight behind ‘Man of the House’. She knows that feeling of meeting someone in the yellow zone of the taxi light theory, the fleeting in between of commitment, where you help someone get ready for love, only to watch them drive off and find it with someone else. The track builds towards the crashing chorus with a steady tension. Gatlin plays with dynamics in a song that feels deliberate, controlling her chaos. 'Man of the House' rewrites the rules, reclaiming strength of role usually assigned elsewhere. This feels like Gatlin’s The Man moment in her own way, introspective yet humorous. Even the line ‘look how I’m well endowed’ lands with wit.
There is an honesty to the lyrics of ‘If She Was a Boy’ that will resonate in a way that won’t always be apparent, and will hit home for people that can’t always express their feelings outwardly or so openly. Gatlin's lyrics capture the confusion between admiration and desire, the heart racing in between where conflicting feelings begin to take shape. It can be disguised on the surface as ‘maybe its just 'cause I want to look like her’, but the truth underneath is louder. That idea of queerness becomes realised as something no longer distant or theoretical, hidden in the safety of a crush on someone fictional or faceless, but something and someone real. Someone could hold the key to your happiness. The lyrics unfold as this awakening does, panic and thrill meeting each other, the contradiction of ‘it's just a phase, I'll brush it off’ and ‘her skin and face and lips would pull me under’. She draws into the idea of resistance but equal parts submission, making the track feel powerful.
'Soho House Valet' unravels with alluring exhaustion, ache seeps into every line like ‘if I ever opened up about how sad I really am.. how could you understand?’ The lyric that looms over this track lies in ‘washed-up wannabe poser and I’m only 25, way to make a dream die’ leading as the songs axis. Ambition has collided with the weight of expectation and disillusionment, suffocating the glow that once presented itself. There’s this apology-meets-surrender with ‘heavy, and I don’t mean to put that on you’ landing with a sigh. There is something almost cinematic in the way Gatlin has transformed this feeling of burnout and emotional paralysis into something so beautiful, with the imagery of ‘body shut down, and I can’t get off of the couch / maybe now you’ll understand why I never come around’ opening the wound in a way that is so human. It shows someone trying to hold on, with this piano ballad leading the way for us to truly see Gatlin’s inner turmoil in this moment.
'LOVE ME’ finds Gatlin peeling back the layers of familial love and identity, exploring the craving of genuine affection in notions like ‘maybe I don’t want your prayers, I just want you to love me’. The song captures the unease in this dynamic, having to prove your worth as you are to those who are supposed to love you unconditionally, why should you need to change. Through lines like ‘It's like you have dementia, you see all of me then I’m unfamiliar’, she examines the dissonance of how someone sees you and who you truly are, their words and actions towards you in reality. Frustration lies in this disconnect, feeling misunderstood within the framework of family roles. Overall, Gatlin shows vulnerable reflections on love that is not simple, where traditional values clash with emotional truths that she also touches upon across other parts of the record. The track accepts the ache rather than seeking resolution, there is hope but the overshadowing acknowledgement that you cannot make someone see the world through your eyes even when you share blood. The sentiment of 'I can't change the weather / I can't change your mind or change forever' brings this home and is brutal in its simplicity, a perfect testament to Gatlin's lyricism.
‘Pipe Dream’ was destined for success in this household, who will still replay ‘Nothing New’ by Taylor Swift and Phoebe Bridgers like it came out yesterday. The track dwells on life’s milestones and chasing desires, asking ‘Am I getting too old to be smoking from a pipe dream? It was cute when I was about 18’. It captures the quiet panic of time spilling by and wondering whether there is ever a right time to tick things off, love, career goals, growth… Can you keep getting away with the chase forever? The pressure to have it all figures out looms over this track and in under two minutes, Gatlin establishes a nuanced take on the tiredness, uncertainty and whether the road ahead us still one worth taking. She’s closes on the somber confession that ‘maybe tomorrow I’ll finally quit’.
‘Jesus Christ & Country Clubs’ is a cathartic rebellion, a rejection of Gatlin’s upbringing and everything that has been placed upon her in the past. She has created the soundtrack to trading expectation for authenticity and defiance. Tapping into a deeper, grittier vocal tone with a southern edge, Gatlin goes against the grain in a world that no longer serves her as she walks ‘the line of social suicide’. Lines like ‘You say you want the southern stereotype / I was your star, now I’m a meteorite’ show her as both the product and the reject of her roots, burning the bridge from something she cannot fit into it. Part of owning queer identity, she suggests, is stepping away from spaces that refuse to fully accept you. ‘I’m going to hell ’cause girls are fun’ lands like a smirk through heartbreak, while ‘I’m going nowhere’ captures the uphill battle of unlearning harmful ideologies and surviving the darkness they leave behind. This song means choosing yourself, even if it means being cast out to what was your core community.
‘Happy’ unfolds as a soft-guitar indie rock ballad that writes about depression with tender truthfulness. Gatlin balances the heaviness with a dark, almost humorous self-awareness, telling Shorefire, ‘It started when I was talking about how I would sometimes daydream about ending up in the hospital, so then this guy I liked would come visit me and realize he was desperately in love with me.’ It is a painfully relatable portrait of desperation, how mental illness can take up so much space in your life that there is no ‘off switch’ when it decides to show up. Lines like ‘You said I steal all the air in the room’ and ‘compulsively always bringing down the mood’ are gutting, made even heavier by the repeated ‘Nothing makes me happy.' Gatlin doesn’t romanticise the weight of it, but recognises her own part in it. The track is quietly brave in the way it admits to the cyclical pull of sadness when your self esteem takes a hit, and she truly knows how to paint the picture of this.
A solid run of tracks that dives into a deeply transformative chapter of her life, 'The Eldest Daughter' captures Gatlin fully stepping into her own voice. Her story shows her acceptance of choices made, confronting the past, and finding comfort in the honesty of her story. She does not only show the highlight reel, she walks us down the rocky, dimly lit path too, the one where you are not sure what, if anything, is waiting at the end for you.
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