Music / Orla Gartland

Influenced by:

• Fiona Apple, Laurie Anderson, Kate Bush, The Cranberries, Fleetwood Mac, Imogen Heap, Greg Holden, Cyndi Lauper, Joni Mitchell, Regina Spektor

Orla Joan Gartland is an Irish singer-songwriter and guitarist based in West London. She began her career posting covers on YouTube. She released her debut EP Roots in 2013. After three more EPs, her debut album Woman on the Internet was released in 2021.

Her music style has been referred to as indie folk, indie pop, and pop rock.

In 2023, she formed a band called FIZZ with dodie, Greta Isaac, and Martin Luke Brown.

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Discography

• Roots (EP, 2013)
• Lonely People (EP, 2015)
• Why Am I Like This? (EP, 2019)
• Freckle Season (EP, 2020)
• Woman on the Internet (2021)

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Tropes associated with her work:

• All Take and No Give: "Flatline" describes a relationship in which the narrator "bend[s] over backwards" for her partner, who would "never think twice" to do the same for her.
• Ambiguously Bi: Prior to officially coming out as bisexual in 2021, she released the song "oh GOD" as part of Freckle Season, in which the narrator has "Catholic guilt" over a Secret Relationship.
• Dead Sparks:
  • "Inevitable" is about a relationship that has grown stale and superficial, but is "so tangled up, it's hard to know how we might function on our own".
  • In "Figure It Out", the narrator has not worked up the courage to officially end a relationship she is fatigued by, secretly wishing her partner would just read her mind and get the hint.
• Hero-Worshipper: In "More Like You", the narrator obsessively admires someone to the point of wishing to be this person.
• Love Nostalgia Song: "Heavy":
  Do you think about me at night
  When the sky is losing light?
  I swear my head fills up with memories
• Morality Ballad: Woman on the Internet opener "Things That I've Learned" is Exactly What It Says on the Tin as the song gives advice, presumably to her younger self, based on life lessons she has acquired over the years.
• One-Woman Song: "Madison", about someone the narrator relied on, "[poured] my heart out to", and yearns for.
• Shrinking Violet: "Why Am I Like This" details what it's like to have social anxiety, between overthinking conversations, assuming people secretly dislike you, and freezing in social situations.
• Stepford Smiler: In "Inevitable", which is about a Dead Sparks relationship:
  And I think it over every night
  Then face the day and wear a smile
  Oh shit, we're living a lie
• You Are Not Alone: "You're Not Special, Babe" is about how it's easy to feel like your pain and bad experiences are unique, but to remember that everyone goes through these things.
  I know you feel like your life is one big mistake, I am right there on your side
  ...We all we go from heartbreak to happy to heartbreak, some things just don't change
  Everyone cries, everyone lies
  ...Everyone's so scared of the future, it's true
  Everyone fucks up and then breaks up and then makes up
  Everyone has days where they don't wanna wake up
  Everyone loves, everyone loses

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