Synth Single Review: “Fall Back Girl” by Donna Lewis & David Lowe

by Karl Magi

Donna Lewis & David Lowe’s “Fall Back Girl” is simultaneously affectionate and aching. The song starts as Donna Lewis’s ethereal voice floats with love and complex emotion while the drum beat pulsates with easygoing motion. Her voice is breathy yet surrounding, creating emotional connection as a cleanly glimmering synth supports the gentle melody.

A plucked guitar creates organic warmth while steadily washing electric guitar tones flicker in the background and the tambourine adds percussive vibration. I enjoy the way in which Donna Lewis combines lightness with feeling in her vocals while the steady beat adds form. A lissome synth circles before David Lowe’s guitar calls out with hurting, expressive energy.

The underlayer continues to propel the music while the chorus drifts with gossamer softness above the continual low-end heartbeat. I enjoy the subtle catch in Donna Lewis’s voice, which captures emotional nuance, while the guitar trembles tightly and the track closes with an affectionate touch.

Everything is about the song’s subject and everything the narrator does, she does for them. She is afraid of losing the other person, so “I try so hard, giving up a part of my heart for you.” She adoringly watches them on a Sunday afternoon, “’cause that’s what I do, I’m all tapped out on you.” She concludes, “I’m just a girl dreaming, I’m just a girl, the fall-back girl.”