IDER’s Mellow Pop Sums Up the Confusion of Being in Your Twenties

There’s a famous song by Baz Luhrmann that aims to make you feel less shitty about not knowing what you’re doing with your life. You probably know it. Called “Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)”, the 1998 track remixes a huge early 90s hit from Rozella and merges it with life advice, taken from an essay. Think: “Do one thing every day that scares you”; “sing”; “live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard”; or anything else that could be repurposed into a fridge magnet slogan or hung in a back garden on a wooden slat next to a gnome.

Garden centre gift shop prosaism aside, the main takeaway from “Sunscreen” is not to be worried, to live a happier life, to appreciate the small things like having tastebuds and knees. It’s a good, if cheesy tune, but also completely lacks a specific nuance: namely the distinct, omnipresent panic of living half in your twenties, and half in your mind, trying to imagine a future that doesn’t exist yet or you thought you would have reached by now. Basically: the kind of thing so wrapped up in frustration, perpetual life insecurity, self-prescribed disappointment and failing bank balances that, as fun as deciding to “sing” is, it isn’t an actionable solution to fixing your whole predicament.

“You’ve Got Your Whole Life Ahead Of You Baby” (listen below), the new single from London-based pop duo IDER, doesn’t provide a simple fix, either. It won’t sugar-baby up your bank account, or get you that job, or make you forget sleeping with that person at that party last summer. However if you’re experiencing a lack of a lust for life, general discombobulation, or spend a lot of time on trains thinking about the things you should and shouldn’t have done since getting your shirt penned in Year 11, then it will at least make you feel less alone. Or understood. Or any of the other adjectives that make a pop song leap into your ears, then into your ribcage, then into a potential mental reframing where the thing bringing you down (in this case: not knowing what you’re doing) becomes empowering.

I spoke with IDER's Megan Markwick and Lily Somerville last August, when they released their debut EP Gut Me Like An Animal. At the time we spoke a lot about the importance of living in the present moment, and that idea has found an even greater foothold in “YGYWLAOYB”. “It’s about the irony of wishing you could act in the moment through hindsight,” the band say, “living life the way you think your future self would want you to.” Produced by Rodaidh McDonald – the guy who is renowned for working with Adele, Sampha, The xx (no big deal, essentially) – “YGYWLAOYB” is the first piece of music from IDER this year as they ready the release of their debut album. It also comes ahead of the announcement of their biggest headline show to date, at east London's Village Underground (a rite of passage for any young act on the way up) later this year.

But enough about all that: the future, and things that haven’t happened yet. Lyrically, the subject matter of “YGYWLAOYB” centres around several ideas – of being “so scared of the future, I’m missing today”, of “trying to love myself”, then deciding “who the fuck is myself”; a challenging question that rattles around your brain on repeat when wading through full-blown inertia, incapable of doing anything beyond checking off each calendar day or scrolling through an Instagram timeline. This is a positive tune, though, and after that self-questioning line the chorus kicks in once more: “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you baby…” “Don’t worry, don’t stress, do your best”.

When you’re down, confused, or generally a bit stuck, it’s easy to feel as though you’re the only one going through something. Self-reflectiveness can become self-obsessive, or self-destructive. But being worried about the future, while also questioning the past, is symptomatic of being a young adult right now. These days, as well as the usual malaise that comes from being in your early twenties, life serves up more obstacles than ever before – whether that’s the fear of never getting a house, being alone in an era of dating apps, or just generally feeling existential. IDER recognise this: both the inward thinking and the millennial problem of not knowing what will happen in a decade time. “This could just be me, or maybe our generation,” they sing, toward the end of the track. Then they rein it back in again: “still they say be patient, it’s all meant to be”. Pause. Then the defining takeaway of the track comes again: “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you baby.”

Sunscreen is important, yeah, but I’ll take the openness of IDER’s sentiment and the many things it could mean instead, and the chilled-out, blissful sound it’s delivered within. Make them your new favourite duo. Not in the future. Now!

You can find Ryan on Twitter.