SPOTLIGHT: A Lifetime Shy of Love—Luisa Wilson on “WTF?”
SPOTLIGHT
SPOTLIGHT
☆ BY PATRICK ZAVORSKAS ☆
Patricia Wilson
THERE IS A PARTICULAR KIND OF FREEDOM IN DANCING TO A SONG ABOUT BEING COMPLETELY FED UP—Luisa Wilson knows that feeling well.
On her newest single “WTF?,” the Memphis-born, New York-based singer-songwriter opens with a blunt question: “Baby, what the fuck?” before admitting that she keeps running out of luck, giving her love to people who squander it.
The lyrics are frustrated, occasionally bitter and deeply self-aware. The music, meanwhile, refuses to wallow. It bounces and grooves, shaking off sorrow for a joyous catharsis. If there is one thing Luisa Wilson is done doing, it’s writing another sad, heart-wrenching song about a relationship that possibly failed from the start.
“WTF?” (released on August 28), is the opening chapter of Wilson’s upcoming EP, LOVE ON MARS?, coming out this fall. Written over a year ago, it serves as the project's thesis—a song that can hold the full weight of heartbreak without surrendering to it, allowing grief and release to exist side by side.
At its core, it is raw and vulnerable, but carries a wit and sense of humor that fuel that contradiction. In part, it recalls an Amy Winehouse song, dotted with lyrics that can turn pain into something biting, funny and deeply human.
You’ll find lyrics such as, “and baby, you had the time to say that it won't be / but you're wasting time. Now I'm five months older / a lifetime shy of a man with the balls to be mine,” where Wilson’s sharp wit gives language to the absurdity of heartbreak without softening the ache underneath it.
“I wanted [“WTF?”] to set the tone that I’m frustrated and I’m pissed off, but I can be frustrated, pissed off, and heartbroken and still write a really pretty song that people can bump to and not feel the weight of those strong emotions,” Wilson said. “I wanted the whole project to really be an experience where you could take what you want from it. You can listen to the lyrics and be like, ‘Fuck my life, I’m gonna put this song on because I’m pissed,’ or, like, ‘Today’s great, the sun’s shining, I’m gonna put this song on because I wanna be happy.’ It could be whatever you want. I think ‘WTF?’ is a really good example of not taking itself too seriously while still honoring the stories behind the song.”
This is what makes the song so intriguing and fun. Before listening and simply reflecting on the press release statement, I was waiting for a song that was perhaps cynical and heavy, stereotyping it as your traditional sad, break-up ballad. But the beauty of the song is that it was written from a place of not wanting to give people the satisfaction of sobbing over heartbreak. It takes the frustrations and hardships of dating—all the “nuances of fucking labels and situationships”—and turns them into something that Wilson, along with listeners, finds lightness in the dark parts of the relationship ending.
“I didn’t put a lot of pressure on myself to crack my heart open, but just say exactly what I was feeling in that moment,” she said.
For Wilson, she admits that she had already spent plenty of time writing about yearning. Her previous work lived comfortably in the ache of unrequited love. Similarly, “WTF?” emerged when she found herself facing another ending. However, this song emerged when she decided she did not want to romanticize heartbreak and loss anymore, and instead, own her worth and break patterns she soon discovered.
“I got really used to wanting people who didn’t really want me back, or pouring a lot of energy into people who did not notice or pour the same amount into me,” she confessed. “It’s funny because it creates this mystique about a person when they don’t care about you as much as you care about them. It makes it feel just like a fantasy. When they give you one ounce of attention or validation, or a date or a night out, the dopamine hit is so intense that you crave it over and over again. I was stuck in that. That was my pattern: dating people who I knew didn’t deserve me and didn’t treat me well.”
That pattern came with an admission that fantasy was stability, being pursued, being cared for, and temporarily relinquishing some independence for a relationship. You can hear it in lyrics like, “I have to say it took me by surprise / how deep I fell into this fantasy of having you,” or “You give a man your soul, and then they run away / Well, I'm tired of being the one to chase.” The cathartic release of that pattern comes from recognizing the difference between wanting a person and wanting what Wilson imagined a relationship with that person could provide.
The release of this pattern is also mirrored in the realization and frustration that comes from dating people who do not want the same as she does. At the center of “WTF?” is a collision between two ideas of intimacy. Wilson sings about giving someone her “soul,” only to later reduce herself to “nothing more than just a body.” The distance between those two lines is where much of the song's hurt lives, and narrows in on the vulnerability she brings into a relationship.
“I’m a very vulnerable person when I’m with somebody that I really trust,” Wilson revealed. “Intimacy to me is… that’s my soul. That’s part of my soul. To another person, that could just be sex. It could be very black and white. I think that’s something that I’ve always had a lot of issues with, because to me, it’s not.”
When that vulnerability isn't reciprocated, the meaning of intimacy can suddenly shift.
“In that moment of intimacy, it's just so clear that none of that actually meant to you what it meant to me,” Wilson said. “I feel just like a body, you know? It's like, I give you my soul, and then I just feel completely used.”
Still, Wilson doesn't look back on those experiences with regret. “I've learned a lot, and I've made a lot of mistakes, but I do not regret any of them.”
With these experiences and the experience of writing “WTF?” Wilson soon realized that love does not have to be the all-consuming fantasy she once believed it was. Love does not mean measuring the amount of days it takes to finally get a text back. Nor does love mean giving your entire self to someone that you forget parts of yourself in the process. Love should mean feeling stability—feeling like you can be your own person and move through a relationship with a sense of ease.
“We grow up thinking that love should be all-consuming, and that passion should be something that takes all of your brain function and energy away from your day-to-day tasks. But that situation definitely does. I think maturing is realizing that that’s not true. Love can be calm and a little bit boring sometimes, and you can leave some energy for yourself and for everything that you need to do in your life, too,” she said.
To me, that is why “WTF?” sounds the way that it does. The song carries the weight of what Wilson was feeling without allowing that hurt or grief to have the final word. She wanted to make something out of the experience that could hold the pain without being defined by it—something she could dance to, rather than something that would leave her crying every time she pressed play—without diminishing any of the feelings she was having.
“I just wanted to kind of have fun with it, and be a little bit unexpected,” she said.
The unexpected nature of the production continues in the final moments of the song, where everything gets stripped down almost like a sigh of relief. It’s a return to the feeling that started it all: Wilson alone with a guitar, finally able to say what she felt without needing to turn it into something bigger than it was.
“It’s the realest part, to me… It’s like, okay, we had all this fun, and we were laughing and dancing, and it was great, but now it’s like, this did actually suck, by the way. This actually was a hard thing to go through,” she said.
In the end, “WTF?” stands for a moment in Wilson’s life where love is being redefined. When the song strips down, and the joke fades, what's left is the honest wound, but also the possibility of something better. “WTF?” ultimately refuses to choose between heartbreak and happiness. It can be the song someone plays while angrily screaming along to every lyric, or the song they put on because the sun is out and they feel good. Wilson wants it to belong to both versions of the listener. The relationship did hurt. The pattern was real. The time was real. The disappointment was real, but so is the freedom that comes afterward, as well as the possibilities that come with no longer forcing yourself to live within the fantasies of love.
Want to explore more of Luisa Wilson’s world? Here is a playlist curated by her and Patrick Zavorskas to help:
“Be My Own Boyfriend” by Olivia Dean
“Therapy at the Club” by Flo
“Coincidence” by Sabrina Carpenter
“How It’s Gotta Be” by Nectar
“Worth It” by Raye
