Lycio Captures the Romance of Pursuing Your Dreams Against the Odds of Fulfilling Them on “Somebody”

The music video for the Lycio single “Somebody” was put together from footage shot by drummer Alex Lowe often using vocalist Genie Mendez’s phone across three years of bonding as musicians and traveling to gigs. Which suits the subject of the song which, on one level, is about an unrequited love, which is surely a kind of metaphor for what it’s like to be in a band that isn’t yet known outside a relatively small circle of a fan base. The song, a compelling mix of downtempo and R&B-inflected synth pop, somehow encompasses that tentative feeling of experiencing that unrequited love with the hope and anticipation of that love becoming a reality or at least keeping your spirits up while you’re working your way through to accepting it’s never going to happen but not dipping, as most of us will, into a phase of despair thinking we’ll never find a love that is life affirming, fulfilling and healthy. That mix of emotions also parallels that of being in a band where you hope your songs connect with an audience or at least someone for whom what you express resonates and captures the imagination and all the effort and work you put in that no one much talks about because it’s the unseen, largely boring, drudgery, every day, un-glamorous activity that makes it all happen. The sorts of things that you sometimes have to make it fun for you to get through even though it’s part of the deal. You watch the video and you do see some of the frivolity amid the mundanity and that is the core of this lush, soulful song that recalls so many of the better, aspirational synth pop songs of the 80s by bands clearly steeped in soul and R&B: it embraces the romance of our infatuations and being swept up in pursuit of our dreams because life without those guideposts is barely life at all which jibes with the title of the song as well. Watch the video for “Somebody” on YouTube and connect with Lycio at the links provided.