ERIN GIBNEY - not something i've told my friends - Rock Ridge Music
Transparently inviting us into her diary throughout 2024, country-pop singer songwriter Erin Gibney explored lustful attraction on “Kryptonite” while battling the heartbroken scars of moving on with “by June,” each establishing a connection to her core, 20-something fan base who are navigating the same trenches of life and growing through it.
She now kicks off 2025 by continuing to turn her diary pages, tackling frayed emotions of guilt, anxiousness, and disappointment on her newest release, “not something i’ve told my friends.”
Co-written by Erin and Landon Austin (the same writing twosome as her last single), where “by june” was laced with heartache, “not something i’ve told my friends” plays like a continuation of emotional turmoil that now sees her succumbing to the memories of what was as she backslides into the false comfort of his arms once again.
However, the whispered tone of her voice adds a very intriguing element in enhancing the secrecy of her going back to him which she’s desperately trying to keep from her friends, expertly amplifying her guiltiness for doing so.
Running a checklist of the selflessness that they offered her throughout the opening verse that helped motivate her past him, while utilizing the second to then ashamedly admit how she’s hiding the truth from them now, balances the struggled, inner juxtaposition into a confessional chorus that’s laced in self-confliction:
“We’re talking again
And that’s not something that I’ve told my friends
Cuz I know they’d be right
Say you’re so stupid and it’d end in a fight
I swore I cried my last tears
Over you last year
Now I’m back in your bed sheets again
That’s not something I’ve told my friends”
Says Gibney: "'not something i've told my friends" is a song I wrote after I started speaking to my ex again. When we began talking, I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of guilt. I knew it was wrong, I knew I would get hurt, and I knew for sure that my friends would disapprove. My friends had seen me work through all my emotions of the breakup and had been by my side through all of it. They helped me heal, and, by talking to my ex again, I felt like I was not only letting myself down, but letting them down as well. I wrote 'not something i've told my friends' as a way to work through those feelings and remind myself why I stopped talking to my ex in the first place."
Through an essence of pure vulnerability, 3-minute therapeutic sessions with resonating commonplace, Erin Gibney continues to be one of the most promising young acts on the rise today as she lays foundations for a solid 2025 right out the gate with “not something i’ve told my friends.”
(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)