Self-sabotage can disguise itself as control when inevitability becomes a belief at your core. In ‘DON’T YOU SEE ME TRYING?’ Erin LeCount embraces her own wreckage with open arms, delivering one of the boldest previews yet of her upcoming EP ‘PAREIDOLIA’. Leaning into the idea of self-sabotage rather than resisting it, LeCount has created a standout confessional single, marking a defining moment in her career.

The track opens with “Everything that I love will destroy me in the end”, immediately highlighting LeCount’s view of her destruction as entirely inevitable. In choosing to “break [her] own heart over and over again” LeCount casts self-sabotage as a form of self-determination and control. It is through this mentality that the song’s most visceral moment arrives.

The emotional core of LeCount’s lyricism surfaces in the explosive confessional “I just stay right here and I never grow up.” This is delivered at full volume, as if LeCount is bellowing, confronting herself with the stagnation that her willingness to self-destruct has created. While the chorus repeats “Don’t you see me trying?”, this moment of complete catharsis undercuts her pleas and exposes her inclination to remain suspended in familiar and destructive patterns. The tension between LeCount’s effort and stagnation only adds to the core idea of the song; she has not spiralled out of control, but she has instead consciously returned to the wreckage.

Despite this, LeCount’s delivery shifts in the final chorus: softer, less defiant, more pleading. The backing slows, the driving beat that carried the track until this point ceases to exist. Confrontation turns into confession. This echoes her earlier concession that “Whatever I seem, I was never as tough” already hinting at a fragility beneath the front she has put up. LeCount’s repeated "Don't you see me trying?” shifts from a confrontational demand into something smaller and vulnerable. LeCount suggests here that, beneath her bravado, she is still exposed.

If ‘PAREIDOLIA’ is set to centre on distorted perception like its namesake, then perhaps LeCount’s belief in her own autonomy is a part of that distortion. The line between agency and inevitability blurs, raising the question of whether her constant return to the wreckage is truly a choice.

‘PAREIDOLIA’ is set for release on February 17th, with LeCount taking the project on the road from May 12th, beginning in Manchester.

Caitlin Kennedy-Sheerin

@focalcait 

Image: Furmaan Ahmed