Charlie Hickey's Songs About Family Love And Middle-School Enemies

Charlie Hickey’s “Seeing Things” is a delicate crusher of a song. While in the somber ballad, the 22-year-old artist begs for a stagnant relationship to be enlivened by friction, motion, or meaning. “I wish you’d fuck with my head, sneak up right beyond me, scare me to death,” Charlie gently confesses over soft guitar strumming. It’s a plea for any sort of emotional action — because to feel something, even fear, is better than feeling nothing at all.


The tune has caught fire as Hickey’s most-streamed song on Spotify, and whenever it was first released in February 2021, it seemed the strongest signifier of his massive potential as a singer-songwriter. What could read as an earth-shifting breakup or a knee-bent request not to be abandoned, the track imagines the opportunities of a unrequited crush. This sort of love is fleeting, nevertheless Hickey illustrates how massive it might feel as soon as you're in it. “That song is about that feeling of building something up in your head so much and going on this whole journey,” he tells MTV News, “and then realizing that nothing has even happened yet.”


While his lyrics document all-encompassing periods of love or heartbreak, they tend to emerge from observations of everyday life and casual conversations with Hickey's companions. “How much you could feel about something that is really such a little deal — I feel like it’s sort of a theme in a lot of my music,” he says. “It’s the thoughts people have any time they’re not trying to mention something interesting.”


“Seeing Things” has since noticed its way onto Hickey's first full-length album, Nervous at Night, out today (May 20), which is a kaleidoscope of dovetailing themes. It skates over relationships both romantic and platonic, while also engaging with the universal experience of growing up and becoming the person you’re meant to be. An in general emphasis on the transitory spans the project, as Hickey navigates the spaces between where he’s been, where he is, and where he’s going. There really is anxiety, also, that he could may not get there. On the apprehensive “Gold Line,” he muses: “I think feeling things is also hard / I’ve got this feeling I’m not gonna get what I want.”


“It certainly is a feeling I have a lot,” Hickey says. “Whether it's about a romantic situation or a career situation or whichever, it's just like, I'm putting so much on and this might just fully just not work out at all.” Below, Hickey talks with MTV News about the method of creating his debut album and the catharsis of finally releasing it into the world.


MTV News: As soon as did you realize you finished the album?


Charlie Hickey: A few of those songs date back to before some of the songs on my EP [Count the Stairs]. So in that sense, the process has been going on for three years, yet a lot of newer songs on there were finished right in time to record the album. It was order kind of a untraditional process in the way that Marshall [Vore], who is the producer of the record along with did a fair quantity of writing with me, would often be writing and demoing stuff as we went. I guess we knew we were done as soon as the label was like, “All right, you guys really have to be done now!”


MTV News: What inspired the title track, “Nervous at Night”?


Hickey: I think it's not unlike “Seeing Things” in that it sounds like it's about some tumultuous relationship dynamic nevertheless it's really just about having a crush. It's like a slightly more mature cousin [to “Seeing Things”]. There's a little more lightness to it, or awareness, which I think is just something I have gained as I've gotten older. Just a little bit more perspective on those feelings, although they still come up and they're still really big.


MTV News: The album opens with “Dandelions,” which gives this small-town nostalgia: I loved the line, “Saying sorry to my sister for taking up space with my little feelings.”


Hickey: I mean, I wrote that song while in the pandemic, and I was living with my mom and my sister for the complete pandemic. So it was quite literally just what was going on. Maybe it sounds like a childhood memory, although it was two years ago.


MTV News: The song opens up the album’s themes of growing and transitioning, and the uncertainties of relationships. Was that your aim?


Hickey: I don't think it was really an aim. I've actually discussed about this with Marshall, although some of the perfect relationship songs are not about romantic relationships, and some days you can't tell or you don't actually need to know. There actually are a lot of platonic or familial love songs on this album or songs about middle school enemies. I think it might be interesting to write about, a relationship that isn't romantic, however you don't actually necessarily need to give that away.


MTV News: Tell me about “Thirteen.”


Hickey: That song is just about being in middle school and being companions with gentlemen who were mean to you. I've actually had a lot of conversations about that song with people because it's a really mean song. I don't know if this even comes through, however I do have this awareness that we were all just kids and it's not that deep. Nevertheless this narrator in the song is certainly working through some stuff and is maybe irritated in a slightly irrational way.


MTV News: Well yeah, they’re not that big a deal right now, yet any time once you are in those spaces, those scars can be deep.


Hickey: And I think there really are moments that you realize things as you get older about relationships that make it harder for you to stay upset, and then there's group kind of this letting go. It's almost disappointing, because anger can be such a thrilling emotion in a way, or a more palatable emotion than sadness. It’s sort of hard to let go of, and I feel like, in that song, there's order kind of this struggle with grasping at the last straws of that upset feeling.


MTV News: I'd like to talk about “Mid-Air,” which does talk about a relationship, although I’m not sure if it’s platonic or romantic. I loved the line: “I think we're two sides of the same coin spinning in midair / Looking for somewhere to land or some face to show.”


Hickey: That song is about my sister actually, so completely not a romantic song. I was describing this to someone recently — I think it's about a relationship where there's mutual caretaking.


MTV News: There's one song I thought sounded particularly quirky in relation to the rest, and that’s “Springbreaker.” You have the bigger songs and the ballads, and this one just stands out.


Hickey: I knew you were gonna mention that! I think it's funny: that's actually the oldest song on the album, so maybe you could tell that I wrote it in a slightly different place in my life where I was in a bit of a different writing mode. Yet I do think Once I hear it back, it still feels cohesive to me. It does sort of read like a wild-card song, maybe just because it's musically a lot more perplexing and there's a bit of a R&B, soulful thing to it… which honestly, none of that was really intentional. Although I really like the space that it holds on the album.


MTV News: On the song, you're singing about having an infatuation or affection for someone who maybe has a more charmed life than you may, although also doesn't seem to give you any attention, or a persons vision that you would like. Is that modeled soon after someone in particular?


Hickey: I think that's another group kind of crush song. It's weird: like, a lot of those songs were written before I had experienced a lot of the relationships that I have. So they are a little bit more in my imagination in some ways, nevertheless I think that one's just a blend of different people. I think it's more about a feeling rather than a person.


MTV News: While in the album, there really are these tension points between relationships and, as a closer, “Planet with Water” feels like the one where you're giving in to them.


Hickey: No, it completely is. It's certainly in the same universe as “Gold Line,” although maybe it's further down the line past that “uh-oh, what's going on,” feeling and more like, “yeah, I'm fucking in it.” It’s certainly the folk song, or the “I Will Follow You Into the Dark.”


MTV News: Which songs on the album were the simplistic and hardest to write?


Hickey: “Dandelions” came out pretty speedily. I think I wrote that song in several hours in my bedroom, and then Marshall and I picked apart a number of things about it, although that one was pretty painless. “Planet With Water” was very involved. We spent a lot of time on the lyrics. Strangely, “Nervous at Night” I remember being a really, really involved process as well.


MTV News: Why was that?


Hickey: I don't know. Some days it's just like, something doesn't feel quite right. Marshall has the tendency to group kind of be like, “OK, this is beneficial, although you could do better,” which I really appreciate. And I've began to be that voice for myself a little bit more. It's not good to labor over things endlessly, yet I do like that feeling of being like, I think this was the ideal I might do.


MTV News: Are you nervous for this to finally be out?


Hickey: A hundred percent. I mean, just the fact that it's been such a long time coming, it's group kind of like, right now I've really put out all that I've got, I've got nothing else to give for the time being.” It’s sort of a scary thing.


MTV News: You’re just releasing it and having no idea what occurs next or how it's gonna be received.


Hickey: Yeah. I mean, I'm feeling really excited. And I have to remind myself occasionally that it's a really good, happy thing.