Hannah Grae: I Missed The Joke

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'I Missed The Joke' can be found slightly buried at position 7 on Hannah Grae's new 'Hell Is A Teenage Girl' album. In some ways that's a shame - a song this good deserves wide attention - but another part of me feels glad about it; it's like knowing a very special secret.  

I believe that 'I Missed The Joke' is just about the perfect indie angst-rock ballad. It absolutely encapsulates the feeling of being ostracised - left on the outside without quite understanding why - and struggling with the trials of youth, growing up, not fitting in, and perhaps not wanting to. And it does that more perfectly that any song I've heard for years. I'm sure this song will save lives. 

Hannah has done quite a bit of life-saving already. She’s self-taught and became well-known thanks to her covers and rewrites on TikTok and YouTube, which led to a debut single in 2022. Her audience obviously finds her hugely relatable (look at the comments on some of her YouTube videos), and a lot of this is down to the honesty which which she expresses herself. This allows for intense shared feelings.  

Let's take ‘I Missed The Joke’ apart a bit. There's a gloomy, muted guitar opening. Hannah sings softly overhead. She pretty much gets the message across right away. "Dressed up all nice just for nothing, to end up staring at the walls."

From here, the song is left bubbling ominously along for a couple of minutes, with hints of the power to come - it's not finally unleashed until there's less than a minute left to go, so let's be patient. At the end of the first chorus, Hannah's voice takes on a bit of an edge as the minor chord change hits, then subsides back to the reflective zone, but with a subtle build starting. This is heralded by a really haunting, reverbed piano note, before the song returns backed by more insistent drums.

At the end of the second chorus, we reach a slightly higher precipice without quite falling off. It's tantalising. We're then given a bridge to connect the dots, featuring that piano again, before a step up in energy and passion, and then finally that pent up anxious anger is allowed to rush out in a stream of passionate old-fashioned rock. The drums pound insistently, focused around crash cymbals instead of hi hats, with huge snare sounds; and the guitars are beefy and honest. Hannah’s voice all the way conducts business as usual but with an elemental fury now.

Oh my gosh this is good. Wow. It’s just so well planned and executed. For once, I don't have much more to say than that. 

Listen for yourself below. And then go back and listen to the song in the context of the full 9 tracks of the album. Hannah Grae is playing live across the country over the next months, including at Focus Wales in early May.