“Turpentine” – a haunting meditation on growing up, drifting apart, and the bittersweet ache of memory
When you first listen to Brandi Carlile’s “Turpentine,” you are struck not by a triumphant chorus or a glittering hook, but by the raw vulnerability woven into every line. Released in 2007 on her breakthrough second album The Story, “Turpentine” stands as a quiet yet profound testament to the emotional complexity of growing up and watching the people you once held closest slip gently—and sometimes painfully—out of reach.
Though it was never a massive chart-topping hit in the way some singles achieve radio ubiquity, “Turpentine” occupied a meaningful place on the album’s listening journey, resonating deeply with fans who find in its lyrics the contours of their own lives. According to compilations of Carlile’s discography, the track is noted alongside others that have charted modestly, suggesting it had a quietly impactful presence among her early works.
From the very first lines—“I watch you grow away from me in photographs, and memories like spies”—there is a sense of nostalgia that feels almost too familiar to brush aside. The imagery in these opening words evokes those faded snapshots tucked in old albums, the ones that make the heart flutter and tighten all at once. It’s the look on a face that was once so present, now only there in grainy stillness. And right away, Brandi’s voice carries that aching honesty, a soul laid bare with compassionate precision.
Where many songs about friendship or love choose to linger on celebration or sorrow alone, “Turpentine” lived in the liminal space—an emotional twilight where joy and loss coexist. The recurring metaphor, “These days we go to waste like wine that’s turned to turpentine,” is not just poetic flair; it is a profound statement on transformation and disappointment. A wine that should be sweet and uplifting has become harsh, acrid—much like relationships that once nourished us but have changed shape over time, leaving a bitter aftertaste.
Listening to “Turpentine” is like returning to a long-forgotten road in your hometown. You know the turns, you remember the laughter and tears that once spilled in those places, but you also see how time has shifted everything around you. The line, “I started losing sleep and gaining weight, and wishing I was ten again… so I could be your friend again,” is so simple yet so achingly specific that it almost feels as if Brandi is reading from your own journal.
What makes this song especially evocative is how it treads the fine line between regret and acceptance. There is no bitterness here, only a deeply human reckoning with the fact that growing older often means growing apart. “I didn’t mean to waste your time,” she sings—an apology, yes, but also a recognition that the distance between people is not always something we control.
In the context of The Story, an album that helped define Carlile’s voice as one of earnest introspection and emotional clarity, “Turpentine” sits as a quiet cornerstone—one that doesn’t shout but still lingers long after the song has ended. Produced with warmth and sincerity, it showcases Carlile’s ability to infuse even the simplest acoustic textures with deep emotional resonance, letting her voice—and the story within it—take center stage.
For listeners who discovered this song years ago, “Turpentine” often becomes one of those pieces of music that lives like a quiet echo. It calls you back to your first experiences of friendship and separation, to those early mornings when life felt like a series of unanswerable questions. It’s the kind of song you find yourself returning to, again and again, because its truth feels like your own.
In a world full of grand gestures and sweeping declarations, “Turpentine” whispers—and in that whisper, there’s an unforgettable kind of beauty.