Indie-pop artist Charlee Remitz, also known as Blue Monkey, is wrapping up her debut LP, "Ageless," with one last surprise bonus track that gets straight to the core of heartbreak and self-reflection. "The Great Undoing" is a cathartic mourning of the kind that comes only when it's not a person that's lost but the idea of one. "The Great Undoing" captures the typical characteristics of indie-pop with heartfelt melodies and a delicate openness.
It's a song fueled by its contradictions, and it mirrors the messiness that comes with trying to process a loss not of a person, but of a version of life at the movies you'd care to imagine together. The song is accompanied by a DIY video, filmed in Nashville, TN, directed by Hollon Beasley of Hunnibaby Creative and Charlee Remitz themselves. Making a grand visual statement, Blue Monkey appears dressed as a jester, as they recreate the wedding that never was.
The imagery is equal parts satirical and heart-wrenching, and the story it tells is as comical as it is sorrowful, mocking the indulgence of dwelling on a breakup while understanding the confusion and buried grief carried with unanswered emotions. There's a raw, unvarnished authenticity in seeing the young version of Blue Monkey stumble through the wreckage of love lost before it's even had a chance to blossom.
Blue Monkey details, "As regards the era of Ageless, I feel 'The Great Undoing' is less the ending of a chapter and more a dogear on one of its pages, something to circle back to. As needed. It already felt ridiculous to me to still be stuck on that relationship when I wrote 'The Great Undoing,' but to be putting the song out now, seven years after the fact well a lot of self-validation had to happen. In a way, sharing this song so many years later feels like an affirmation. The thing was, I wasn't just tasked with getting over the breakup, I was tasked with getting over myself."
In opting to release this track now, Blue Monkey gives you not just a meditation on lost love, but also a universally needed reminder that growth and healing don't happen in a straight line. It's a victorious, soul-stirring cap on an album that has already set Charlee Remitz apart as a voice not easily ignored in indie-pop. It's that kind of song that makes you feel seen, you and your messy, complicated feelings, and in music, that's a rare gift.
Discover Blue Monkey on Instagram