Erika Wester’s Heartbreaking and Gentle “Fifteen” is a Song About the Power of Small Gestures of Compassionate Affection

Erika Wester sounds like she’s brushing the gentle guitar chords throughout “Fifteen.” It provides the fragile textures and tenderly vulnerable mood of a song that is at once nostalgic and deeply melancholic. With each line Wester offers a vivid memory of a time that could be 10 years ago, 20, 30 or today. She taps into an emotional resonance that you never really age out of unless you get to a particularly callous and hard hearted place in your life. She recalls when she felt like she was growing up too fast and spouting off the kinds of sentiments that many bravado laden youths put out into the world that do the kind of emotional harm for which an apology can never be enough. But the song takes a turn from a memory of being fifteen and riding her bike to a time when she tries to console a friend or lover even though “I can’t fix the problems in your mind, god knows I barely tackle mine.” But she offers to a very basic, very simple but meaningful gesture of contact and comfort and says, “I’ll hold your hand in the dark if you want me to.” We don’t get to know the exact sources of pain, the searing images that stick with you that are hard to talk about and which no explaining away can easily soothe. We do hear about the aftermath in the song and some of the only ways that seem to work to help in a direct way that goes beyond mere words and straight to a sensation that communicates care without drama but imbued with significance. Listen to “Fifteen” on YouTube and follow Wester at the links below.