On her latest single “Done Is Done,” Toronto’s Liza reckons with unforgettable heartache. Surrounded by the balmy coos of Nevon Sinclair, her fellow collaborator from Daniel Caesar’s Case Study 01, and softhearted acoustic guitar strums, Liza asks, “When did we go down burnt from the flames?” Her voice is tender, multilayered at times, imbued with a somber hesitance to accept a faded companionship.
“Sometimes I have a hard time learning to let go of things and people. I tend to let good memories overshadow the present reality of a given situation and, as a result, I don’t immediately recognize when something is no longer working,” she explains. “When I wrote this song, I initially wrote it as a poem, and I was going through many life transitions at the time—dealing with the end of some really important relationships. It was months later where Nevon read my poem and told me that it should be a song. We worked together to bring it to what it is now and it was a really deep and beautiful experience.”
“Done Is Done” is the apt soundtrack for that silence that occurs after a breakup conversation, recognizing that the alignment of the two people involved isn’t working anymore. “Through the making of this song, I realized and accepted that even though relationships may come to an end, that doesn’t mean that it didn’t serve its purpose,” Liza says. Relationships are powerful landmarks of our lives whether or not they stand the test of time—this is captured in the track’s metaphor, “And knowing now, roses don’t come back to life.” Roses, like a past love, are still potent even though their beauty is temporary.
Listen below.
