‘why do i get out of bed?’ by Emilia Tarrant - Album Review

On her debut album ‘why do i get out of bed?’ arriving on 13 March 2026, London-based singer-songwriter Emilia Tarrant turns inward, tracing the emotions that shape her daily life. Describing the album, she told sonic hub, “It’s literally just me in a bunch of songs.” The statement reflects the record’s confessional core, showcasing Tarrant’s strength as a storyteller as she transforms day-to-day struggles with mental health, relationships, and friendships into intimate, pop-infused narratives. The record preserves the raw honesty that has defined her work since she began releasing music at 17. 

At 24, Tarrant has already earned significant milestones— performing at Glastonbury 2022, being supported by Radio 1’s Future Pop and BBC Introducing, and having her songs on Love Island (UK & USA), bringing her 100,000+ Shazams and chart success in both the UK and globally. On ‘why do i get out of bed?’ she channels the introspective nature of her songwriting into a carefully constructed debut that invites listeners to sit with the question alongside her, exploring it with emotional transparency. 

The album keeps Tarrant’s voice firmly at its centre. Even when the instrumentation expands beyond simple guitar and piano lines, the production remains understated, ensuring her voice carries the emotional weight of each track. The result is an atmosphere that feels intimate, as if we are listening to a collection of diary entries. At times, the simplicity risks blending certain tracks together, but it is precisely this restraint that gives the album its sincerity. Tarrant’s intimate vocals and candid lyrics are more than enough to keep the listener with her, allowing them to feel each emotional shift as she tells her stories. 

That intimacy is heightened through small and effective production details.

Several songs open with environmental recordings, whether it’s laughter or fragments of conversation, grounding the music in reality and memory. Nowhere is this more striking than on ‘Life Expectancy.’ Here, Tarrant experiments subtly with vocoder vocal effects, giving her voice a distant, almost aged quality, as though it were echoing through an old camera recording. Paired with the sound of children’s laughter woven into the background, the track takes on a nostalgic haze, like rediscovering an old home video. The juxtaposition between the effortless joy of childhood preserved in the laughter and lyrics such as “You stole my youth” sharpens the song’s emotional impact. Tarrant captures the feeling of having grown older too quickly, of losing the spark of childhood under the weight of heartbreak and anxiety. The effect is cinematic without losing its intimacy.   

Photo Credit: Raife Smith

Thematically, the album moves through everyday life — heartbreak, joyful love, grief, anxiety, loneliness, and resilience. The sombre opening track ‘to be human’ initially suggests a uniformly melancholic album, with Tarrant confessing, “I don’t want to be in my bed forever” — a line that frames the record’s central tension between isolation and participation in the world. As the album unfolds, its emotional range widens. ‘The Three Words’ provides warmth and relief, a reminder that love can be a reason to get up. ‘Only Constant’ reflects on the destabilising grief that follows loss, while ‘Grounded by Gravity,’ ‘Break Up With Myself,’ and ‘Blanket of Anxiety’ confront mental health struggles with stark directness. By the time the closing track ‘Hamster Wheel’ circles back to the lyric “Why do I get out of bed?” the question has evolved. The album doesn’t give a clear-cut answer, it shows the listener that living — leaving the bed — invites both pain and joy. You will get your heart broken.

You will lose people. But you will also find love, connection, and fleeting moments of light. That cyclical return to the opening question reinforces the idea that life’s struggles are ongoing. The album’s sequencing feels like a journey mirroring life itself: uneven and unpredictable. Moments of hope sit beside despair. Relief never fully erases anxiety; joy never entirely eclipses fear. Getting out of bed, Tarrant suggests, isn’t about grand declarations of hope, but about choosing to face whatever the day might bring. To live is to risk heartbreak, grief, disappointment. But to stay in bed is to risk love, laughter, and the possibility of being understood. 

As a debut, ‘why do i get out of bed?’ further establishes Emilia Tarrant as an introspective and emotionally intelligent songwriter unafraid to express herself even in discomfort. While its understated production occasionally leans toward safety, the strength of her lyricism and vocal delivery ensures the album remains compelling throughout. More than anything, it feels honest — poetic without being abstract, relatable without being clichéd. In asking why we choose to rise each morning despite the weight of everything we feel, Tarrant doesn’t claim to have the answer. Instead, she offers something perhaps more valuable: the reassurance that we are not asking the question alone. 

You can listen to ‘why do i get out of bed?’ on all streaming platforms.

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WORDS SAFI UNAL