All Great Things Must Come to an End – Sleeping With Roses by Chelsea Cutler

As we are typically told by the older, wiser people in our lives, great things don’t last forever. Whether it be the four years of high school, four years of college, your honeymoon, or even the feeling of euphoria you get when you step on a stage, everything must eventually come to an end. In this case, our philosophy lesson comes from 22-year-old Chelsea Cutler in her Debut EP Sleeping With Roses. 

The wait is finally over, as the talented Amherst College dropout introduces us to her world of heartbreak and happiness. Her musical journey all started with playing around with a MIDI board and some electric guitar chords in her college dorm. Playing goalie for the Amherst women’s soccer team, Cutler never really had time to hone her craft so she kept her musical outlet to SoundCloud since a high schooler. As she attempted to get her hands on every piece of good vibe- feel good music that she could get, covering artists from Jack Johnson to Fetty Wap, thousands of people saw the potential in her voice, but most importantly the creativity in her processes.

She is completely self-taught. Focusing on her athletics and academics for the majority of her childhood and teenage years, music had always been something that she could fall back on. She released her first song in 2017 on a demo called Your Shirt. Her take on the indie-pop genre lead to collaborations with artists such as Louis The Child and Quinn XCII. All while she was still playing soccer at Amherst. After seeing some success in the realm of the music world, Chelsea felt the need to take the next step, and drop out of college to go on tour. 

Dropping out of college, especially one of the nation’s (que snarkiness) “finest academic institutions” is no small decision. But with the support of her friends and family, it was something she had all the confidence in the world doing. In a sit-down with Billboard, she described the process as being surreal, “It didn’t really hit me honestly until this September, when all of my friends went back and I left for Nashville for tour. I was like, ‘I’m really not going back to school. This is crazy.’”

She credits her inspiration for her mixtape, Sleeping With Rosesto her going through a period of growth and transition. She put her heart and soul into every lyric, chord, beat, and synth that made up the mixtape. 

The title track, Sleeping With Rosesstarts off the same as most of her songs. Its eerie beginning starts with just an echoing synth pulsating on the down beat and sits alone floating on a lake until Cutler’s voice pulls it back into shore, only to hop back on. Chelsea and her synths float into a space of emptiness, promising absolutely nothing. The synths eventually turn into wholesome chords accompanied by a string orchestra. 

“I promised you that we would be alright” she says as a subtle guitar riff takes us into the chorus. The chorus provides us with the climb. Volume increases, and so does the pace of the song. With the chords, volume, and lyrics all alluding to a happy ending (at least musically), the song just ends. 

The first couple of times that I listened to it, I legitimately thought my Spotify broke. So, I went to YouTube, SoundSloud, and Apple Music all to find the same thing. Cutlers motive here is to preach that all great things must come to an end. As I personally think this was the best song on the mixtape – as do many others – she abruptly brings it to a close. 

It was as if between the synths, vocals, guitar, and strings, there was no room left on the floating raft. With nothing else to do, Cutler takes the leap into the water and is swallowed by silence.