“Don’t Forget Me,” Maggie Rogers’ junior album finds the singer-songwriter moving in a clearer direction than ever, with songs that feel particularly apt for a graduating senior. Composed of just ten tracks, “Don’t Forget Me” is an intimate and introspective album that showcases Rogers’ range and songwriting talent.
Rogers rose to fame as a New York University senior when Pharrell Williams gave her song “Alaska” no notes. Since then, she has released the studio albums “Heard It In a Past Life” (2019) and “Surrender” (2022). Interestingly, Rogers pursues more than music; she graduated with a master’s degree from the Harvard Divinity School in 2022.
The titular lead single on the album “Don’t Forget Me,” released Feb. 8, sees the singer grappling with her friends’ life changes as they get married and settle down. Rogers frankly sings, “Love me till your next somebody,” continuing “That when it’s time to leave… Don’t forget me.” Yet, there is a light of optimism: “Maybe I was bitter from the winter all along / Maybe there’s a stranger, standing, holding out / for love, just waiting on the next street / just for me.”
The song “Don’t Forget Me” immediately struck a chord and set the stage for the rest of the album, which swims in nostalgia. While my friends are not getting married yet, many of us are on the precipice of leaving a residential college and stepping into a largely unformed future. The song cuts to the anxieties of embarking on different paths.
The album as a whole is full of honest emotions and stories that span different phases of life — falling in and out of love, moving on and changing with the years. Rogers, who is nearing her thirtieth birthday, said in an interview with Vogue that she wrote the album “as if they were scene by scene in a movie.”
“There are so many different memories woven into the tapestry of this record, from across the span of my 20s,” Rogers said in the Vogue interview. “I’m turning 30 at the end of April. This record does feel in many ways like this really woven memory blanket of this long span of my life.”
One of my immediate favorites from my first listen through the full album is “It Was Coming All Along.” The opening track welcomes listeners to the album with warm guitar strums and a poppy beat, painting the image of someone dealing with anxiety and the closing of chapters. The first verse includes a lyric about the narrator’s mother selling her childhood home. In another, a friend, Nora, calls Rogers and reminds her, “‘Hold your temper / Hey there, Maggie, slow your roll.’”
Rogers flexes her creative muscles with songs like “The Kill,” which she recently performed on The Late Show. The song captures the whirlwind push and pull between two lovers, cleverly swapping out the subjects throughout the chorus to flip the perspectives (and making it harder to sing along). I think “The Kill” has the makings to be her next single off the album, following “Don’t Forget Me” and “So Sick of Dreaming.”
On her Instagram, Rogers shared that the album was written in a mere five days and blends memories from her own life and the lives of others. Rogers co-wrote eight of the songs with Ian Fitchuk, and penned “If Now Was Then” and “I Still Do” on her own.
At its core, “Don’t Forget Me” is an album shimmering with warmth. The songs feel intimate yet universal. In “If Now Was Then,” another one of my favorites, the narrator struggles with regret and missed connections. The song ends with an apology, a simple repetition of “I’m sorry.” At some points throughout the record, Rogers names her friends and includes interludes of them speaking.
Rogers does not have the most powerful voice in the industry; she is not belting, but she captivates listeners with her thoughtful lyrics and sweet, clear melodies. While I’m partial to the album’s more upbeat songs, I’m hopeful that the slower numbers like “I Still Do” and “All The Same” will grow on me with time.
As I’m walking around campus, soaking in my last long, blue evenings with college friends, I feel particularly tied to “It Was Coming All Along.” It is comforting to hear Rogers croon, “I’m flying long past 22.” As Rogers closes the door on her twenties, “Don’t Forget Me” assures me that I’m ready to continue walking through them.
Charlie Keohane ’24 (she/her) is an Editor at Large. She previously served as the SGA Correspondent and a Senior Writer.
She is an environmental writing major and a psychology minor from Northern California. Outside of academics, Charlie is a Senior Admissions Fellow at the Middlebury Admissions Office. She also is involved with the women’s track team and hosts Witching Hour, a radio show on 91.1 WRMC. In Spring 2023, she studied abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, watching Greta Gerwig movies, polar plunging, sending snail mail, and FaceTiming her rescue dog, Poppy.
