Let’s Be Friends: Something for Everybody Review
My initial thoughts and feelings about the debut album by Sammy Rae & the Friends.
On September 20th, 2024, more than six years after their Good Life EP, Sammy Rae & The Friends released their debut album, Something for Everybody. I have been a fan of the band’s music for about three years and have seen them live three times so far, on their If It All Goes South Tour and CAMP Tour. Upon listening to the new album, I jotted down my thoughts to capture my first reactions to and feelings about these songs, which I’ve consolidated here into a review—spoiler alert, I love Something for Everybody, precisely because of the variety of sounds it offers as a great representation of and introduction to the band.1 Feel free to listen along, and tell your friends about The Friends!
1. The Friends Intro
Despite being less than a minute in length, the first track is an important part of the album-listening experience. “The Friends Intro” is a studio recreation and simplification of the introduction song the band plays at concerts. The dramatic opening with gliding strings emulates a sense of grandeur, setting the tone of the production. This feels like the beginning of an old movie or show at the theater, just like the curtain in the album artwork evokes. The song only has six lyrics, with the core message in the first and last line: “I wanna be friends with ya.” This serves as the band’s thesis statement—that friendship is love in a simple form, and music is an effective vessel for fostering such feelings of community.
2. Thieves
The first full-length track on the album, “Thieves,” opens with a taunting whistle that anticipates the verse melody. Even with only the drums as accompaniment, the fuzzy vocal production makes it immediately clear that this is a rock song. As the first verse progresses and establishes the “la la la” catchy hook, bass and guitar riffs come in to fill out the musical space. Lyrically, the song recounts an unintentional life of crime, made lighter with the context of the foolish recklessness of youth: “I had no malicious plans / Sticky fingers, dirty hands.”2 The bridge consists of repetition of the following lyric with its clever wordplay: “I didn’t mean to do it, but I had to do it / I didn’t mean to do it but, I mean, I had to do it.” After the vocal layers build, an epic guitar solo takes over and leads into the return of the “la la la” hook. Until the end of the song, Sammy Rae’s adlibs highlight her vocal prowess.
3. Coming Home Song
“Coming Home Song” is an instant classic. Its message of love and self-acceptance feels like a big hug. The first few lines come in as if filtered through a radio, out of reach, but the clear-tone arpeggiated chords soon establish the comforting 6/8 flow. The lyric at the end of the chorus says it best: “Leave a light on for yourself.” Only by trusting yourself and your feelings in good faith can you make amends with your “poor inner child.” The whole message is to take care of yourself, and when you feel like you can’t, you have the song to help you through it. Indeed, in the bridge and outro, the band sings: “I was falling / And I picked me up.” Whenever I listen to this song, I’m taken back to hearing it for the first time at the concert in Amsterdam and learning to sing this refrain with a room full of Friends. This experience of using community to foster self-empowerment is the greater takeaway of the song, but it’s also just a delightful track.
4. No Rulebook
The next song takes a turn towards a smooth and funky sound. It embodies a “fake it till you make it” idea that acknowledges that there’s “No Rulebook” in life. The song’s relatively simple lyrics and relaxed pace make room for more vocal and instrumental exploration and improvisation—in that respect, the band is also “making it up” as they go. The jazzy melodies and countermelodies in the vocal and saxophone lines are particularly impressive. In the bridge, the song moves into a new, dreamy sonic landscape. The main chords used throughout the song are the minor i, iv and v, but this section shifts to the major VI and VII. The A major chord is followed by a brief modulation to B♭ major, with new major I and V chords. The return to the key of B minor is facilitated by the shift down from the F major to E minor chord, the song’s original iv chord. Music theory aside, this section simply sounds like it’s breaking the rules of listener expectations and creating something more enthralling instead. The inherent text painting throughout this song allows for a multitude of intricacies to be discovered.
5. Cool-Doug, at Night
“Cool-Doug, at Night” is the first feature on the album, with vocals from both Sammy Rae and Jacob Jeffries. The bass and guitar riffs in the song’s intro and Jeffries’ falsetto singing establish a disco sound quite different from the rest of the album. The lyrics provide various descriptions of “cool-Doug,” a mystery man who becomes a “disco-dancing fool” on the dance floor. Sammy Rae’s vocals on the pre-chorus have a dramatic (and sarcastic) classical quality with strong vibrato that contrasts the other sections of the song, just like the character’s diametrically opposed personalities.3 The instrumental chorus is extremely catchy and utterly danceable—my only complaint is that I wish it went on longer at the end of the song!
6. Call Ya Back
Opening with clapping and a cappella singing, “Call Ya Back” quickly sets itself apart from the other songs in another new way. Additional voices and instruments come into the mix one by one on the repeated lyric: “I’m gonna call you in the morning, you already know / I’m gonna call you in the evening, you already know.” Later, in the “I’ll call ya later” section of the song, the chromatic descending bass line and ascending melodic line complement each other to create the feeling of being closed in on through the incessant repetition. The simple message of the song is a reflection of our society where the expectation of constant communication can be an impediment when you just want to get away from the noise and responsibilities of daily life. The music and lyrics in this song never stop, which emulates the feeling and irritation of people constantly trying to get in touch with you when you want to be left alone.
7. 888-98-CALLYABAK
This eleven-second interlude falls at the exact midpoint of the album and acts as a conclusion to “Call Ya Back.” The Friends sing a barbershop-style catchy tune that cheekily alludes to the previous song and provides a fake toll-free phone number: “If nobody’s answering, there’s nothing you can say / Triple-8-9-8-C-A-L-L-Y-A-B-A-K.”
8. I Get It Now
The only romantic love song on the album, “I Get It Now,” is a beautiful ballad. The melodic piano motif from the intro recurs and is elaborated throughout the song. As a mostly acoustic track, the romantic lyrics and sweeping melodies come to the forefront. A personal favorite choice of mine is the chord progression in the chorus, which goes D–F#m–G–Gm, or I–iii–IV–iv; I love a progression ending in major IV to minor iv (I gasped when I heard it). Some lyrics that stood out to me on first listen were: “So many colors I see in the clouds” and “Now that I’m half of something / I’m the most whole I’ve ever been.”4 After the build in production in the bridge, the final chorus breaks it down again, with the simplicity of piano and cymbals providing a lovely ending.
9. We Made It
“We Made It,” featuring Celisse, is a storytelling song that celebrates success in whatever shape and form that might take. For the woman and man described in the first and second verses, respectively, these stories and standards of personal contentment differ. Musically, this track has a funky, fun, and upbeat sound with catchy melodies and riffs. The bridge with the refrain of “it’s all good” has an infectious energy, and the two singers’ harmonies that escalate are extremely satisfying. At the end of the song, they sing and scat the outro in a way that radiates the joy depicted in the lyrics. To put it simply, listening to this song makes me happy!
10. Good Time Tavern
The happiness carries over into “Good Time Tavern,” which opens with the group singing in unison: “Gonna have a good time.” The first verse establishes upbeat rhythms and playful melodies as the lyrics describe a place where there’s “something for everybody.” In the chorus, the instruments imitate different music genres as they’re mentioned: “And they play good old-fashioned rock and roll / Funky soul, and down-home country blues.” The beginning of the bridge comes down to a half-time vocal and stomp-clap moment that slowly builds back up with added instruments.5 The climax of this section is a musical explosion that underlines the secret to this good time tavern: “It doesn’t have an address / You just gotta know the way.”6 Ultimately, the song is a testament to The Friends and the environment that they create with the audiences at their shows.
11. Luck of the Draw
“Luck of the Draw” is another duet, this time featuring vocals from Will Leet, the band’s guitarist. I heard this song live last November, and the main thing I remembered from it was the incredible improvised guitar solo. The song follows its own version of the sixteen-bar blues in which the same melody is sung twice and then a different, catchy tune comes in on the refrain, before it returns to the first lines. If we consider this the A section of the song, the B section is where we learn the song’s premise: making mistakes and things going wrong comes down to the “luck of the draw.” The B section is a musical departure from the A section, with dreamy saxophone melodies and a carefree “ba da ba” motif. Upon the return to the A section, Sammy Rae sings an astounding slide up from an F3 to a belted C#5 on the word “bed.” The variations on the melody the second and third time around, as well as Leet’s falsetto and guitar riffs, kept me on the edge of my seat. The song ends with a fadeout and I would have preferred if it had kept going for a few more minutes of instrumental solos, but that’s probably because the live version set the bar too high.
12. David
I also had the pleasure of hearing “David” live last year. Since the audience wasn’t singing along, it was a moment focused on Sammy Rae’s voice and storytelling through this beautiful ballad. Coming off the back of several loud and upbeat songs, this is a great point in the album’s tracklist to begin to wind down. The acoustic guitar and descending/ascending verse melody set the tone for this folk song telling the tale of a young man struggling with his mental health. The song addresses the lack of vocabulary for dealing with these issues and how emotions can be repressed and bottled up. This might even be the case for positive feelings like love: “sometimes you fill my chest with so many good things / I haven’t got the space to breathe.” The speaker tells David that “Goliath never fought this hard,” indicating that David’s internal battle is even more difficult than the one from this Biblical allusion. By the end of the song, however, he realizes that he is “[m]ore than mama said that [he] would be” and finds his own strength. Even when I’m not paying attention to the lyrics, the raw beauty of this song just makes me want to cry.
13. State Song
The final song on the album, “State Song,” sounds like it was recorded decades ago, outside, with a soundtrack of insects and birds, and played through the radio. This stylistic choice leans even further into the American folk genre, bolstered by the lyrics that catalogue different US states and cities. The theme is also likely a product of the lifestyle of a touring musician away from home for long periods of time. The speaker tells a lover that she’ll go all over the country to be with them, with one exception: “if you head to California, baby, I gotta let you go.”7 This reminded me a little bit of Chappell Roan's "California"—in any case, it's interesting to see a small cultural shift away from the idealization of California. Musically, this song provides a gentle, soothing ending to the album that feels like an intimate peek behind the infamous blue curtain.
Overall, if you can’t tell already, I highly recommend this album! Whenever I listen to The Friends, I find that it refreshes and adds something new to my taste in music, and Something for Everybody is no exception. Even if you don’t typically listen to all of these musical styles, there are bound to be a few songs that you connect with. In my case, these seem to effectively be all of them, although “Cool-Doug, at Night,” “Good Time Tavern,” “Luck of the Draw,” and “David” stand out to me right now—let me know your favorites in the comments! And if you’ve never heard Sammy Rae & The Friends before, go back and check out their previous music for a Good Time.
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If you know me, you'll know that the enthusiasm I have for art that I enjoy makes it difficult for me to rank or rate, so this review is qualitative, not quantitative!
The music video concept is adorable, with little kid versions of The Friends robbing a candy store while the band plays the role of the incompetent police.
She refers to him as the "patron saint of polyester."
I can't wait to hopefully hear this song live!
Shoutout to "They even got a photo booth / And you get the prints for free" because that silly detail made me feel so much.
She's so real for writing "I hate that airport in LA."