a study of the human experience volume two

When a 14-year-old Taylor Gayle Rutherfurd started her “GAYLE project,” as she calls it, she sat down to write as much as she possibly could, for as long as she could. Four years later, that work became two EPs, *a study of the human experience volume one* and now *volume two*—the former featuring her inescapable viral hit, “abcdefu.” In that time, GAYLE learned to home in on all her influences, from Aretha to Alanis. “Now that I’m 18, I’ve learned so much about myself, my generation, my relationships,” she tells Apple Music. “It’s a combination of all those human experiences, put into one project.” *volume two*, to no surprise, is an evolution from the first. Fiery odes to breakups have become existential ruminations on religion (“god has a sense of humor”), Ashlee Simpson-style pop-punk sing-alongs don’t defer responsibility (“indieedgycool”), and love has nuance (“fmk” \[with blackbear\]). “I hope people can see that there’s a wide range of emotions I’m trying to convey, different parts of myself I’m trying to show,” she tells Apple Music. “And I hope that people, even passive listeners, can listen and attach themselves to it, if they choose to.” Below, GAYLE walks through the EP, track by track. **“indieedgycool”** “At the beginning of 2020, I started getting attention from social media that I haven’t gotten before, and I realized that my actions affected the way that people perceived me. I was caring a bit too much. I started saying this phrase ‘indie edgy cool’ to make fun of myself. And so, the song started with me walking into the studio with the lyrics ‘I’m too cool for the radio/Got vintage kicks, I’ma let you know.’ We wrote the chorus and then, pretty quickly, it went on to bass, the electric guitar stabs in the chorus.” **“fmk” (with blackbear)** “I have loved blackbear for years. I feel very lucky that he was down. He ended up rewriting his own second verse with this friend Andrew Goldstein. He texted it to me. I was able to send some notes back, and he tracked all the vocals and everything. It’s just absolutely mind-blowing that I was able to do a song with blackbear.” **“ALEX”** “Alex is a real person. It is about one relationship—a very toxic, codependent relationship. I was listening to Lorde in my best friend’s car, and my seat was fully back. All of a sudden, I sit up and I’m just like, ‘I have to break up with Alex. I have to break up with him.’ And she was like, ‘Thank God. But why?’ Then I went home, broke up with him, and my best friend and I, Sara Davis, we wrote the song with Reed Berin. I wanted to hate the song. I really did. I wanted to think it was the shittiest song, but then, unfortunately, I really love what Reed did with it, and I was like, ‘Fuck you, I’m putting it out, but I hate you all.’” **“15”** “I wrote the song with Austin Jenkins, and I wrote the chorus before I came into the room. I’ve written a few songs about the experience that I had; a lot of them were talking about how debilitating it was for me. This song is the first time that I am trying to hold this person accountable.” **“god has a sense of humor”** “Somebody I met when I was 13, at summer camp, she and her mother passed away. Something very terrible happened. She was younger than me. In that moment, the world just stopped making sense because an innocent, loving, funny, curious, smart, talented young girl was just gone from this earth—and for no fucking reason. I stopped believing in humanity a bit. I never grew up with any religion. I really hated the phrase ‘God has a sense of humor’ because there’s times where I just didn’t think it was funny. I see the song in more of a positive light, teetering between believing in the good in people and believing that it’s all terrible and we’re all doomed. God has a sense of humor, and I’m just not always in on the joke.” **“snow angels”** “‘snow angels’ is actually an interpolation of \[Demi Lovato’s\] ‘Cool for the Summer.’ That was an accident. I did not mean to do that. I rewrote the chorus melody three separate times, and I just could not find anything I liked as much. Shout-out to the writers because they approved it. Sometimes you just need to forget about all of the difficulties about the world, about your own life, body, and brain, and just have fun with your friends. And that’s where I wanted to leave the EP, like, ‘Things are serious, but sometimes you just need to be lighthearted to be happy with life.’”