HAIM Find Quiet Power and Emotional Clarity on ‘Everybody’s Trying To Figure Me Out’

The latest single from HAIM, ‘Everybody’s Trying To Figure Me Out’, feels like the emotional hangover after a long summer. It's clear-headed, contemplative, and a little bruised. It’s the kind of song that doesn’t fight for your attention but drifts in gently, unfolding with soft insistence and surprising weight.

With co-writing credits from Justin Vernon and Rostam Batmanglij, the track is a striking, slow-burning detour from HAIM’s usual Laurel Canyon shimmer. Instead, this is vulnerability, bathed in dusk.

The song begins in a haze: “Everybody's tryna figure me out / Ohh, and that's alright.” It’s the aftermath of something occurring within the self. A sense of battle between who you should and shouldn't be is imminently headstrong from the start. There’s a careful intimacy in the delivery, a sense that we’re hearing something half-confessed and half-processed.

‘Everybody’s Trying To Figure Me Out’ is built on restraint. Gently looping guitars, airy synth textures, and a minimalist rhythm section form a soundscape that gives the lyrics room to land - and they do. The chorus, “I feel like I might live inside of everyone's thoughts / I wish I could slow the tape down to the point where everything stops”, is both a sigh and a declaration. It’s equal parts worn out and defiant. Listening evokes a reclaiming of self from a world that keeps trying to interpret, explain, and flatten it.

On Instagram, lead guitarist and vocalist Danielle shared that writing the song caused her to be sick for a whole month, possibly the conclusion of her body expelling the feelings she'd been holding in (along with pictures of incredible soups she's been making). The jarring contrast between the joy of creating and the vulnerability that ensues is palpable in the listening experience of HAIM’s new single. 

That sentiment runs through every line of the song. From the second verse, production doesn’t rush to build or swell, instead, it allows space for each lyric to echo. There’s no cathartic drop, no climactic finish. The outro, a simple repetition of 'You think you're gonna die, but you're not gonna die', is harrowingly calm. The emotional resolution is quiet: the act of naming the feeling is the release.

This isn’t unfamiliar territory for HAIM; fans of previous tracks ‘Hallelujah’ or ‘FUBT’ will recognise the band’s gift for gut punch balladry, but ‘Everybody’s Trying To Figure Me Out’ feels even more stripped back, more internal. While earlier singles like ‘The Steps’ or ‘Want You Back’ had a certain bounce and brightness, this track leans into stillness. It’s not melancholic for the sake of it - it’s honest, even healing.

What makes this song so affecting is its quiet confidence. There’s no need to prove anything, no pressure to dazzle. Instead, HAIM invites us to sit with the messiness of selfhood. They lyricise the shifting, uncomfortable, beautiful process of not being figured out. And in doing so, they give us a song that feels like a breath drawn deep after a long silence.

If this is a glimpse of their next chapter, it promises something reflective, nuanced, and unafraid to sit in the grey areas. ‘Everybody’s Trying To Figure Me Out’ may be born of panic and pressure, but it lands like calm after a storm.

Ellie McWilliam 

@elliemcwilliam 

Image: 'Everybody's Trying to Figure Me Out' Official Cover Image 

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