The duo’s ability to follow those natural instincts is part of what makes their songs so emotionally powerful at times, welcoming in heartbroken listeners like a friend to vent to or an outlet for their pre-first date jitters. One of their mission statements is trying to craft songs that feel like they already exist, something that they achieve with warm and memorable melodies. The duo looks to The Beatles’ “Yesterday” as the gold standard in this regard.

“There’s the story where Paul McCartney started the song, and he was going around to everyone being like, ‘Have you ever heard this?’ and eventually he was like ‘I guess I wrote it! I guess it was me!’” says Bright. “Some of the work obviously comes from the grit and the craft, but certain chunks teleport into your brain from the ether. You have to be like, ‘Am I conceiving of this, or remembering this?’”

Although the duo’s upcoming project, Be Still My Heart, is only five tracks in length, they’ve been releasing singles for it since 2021. Frances is a self-described perfectionist, often concerned with the idea that the final product will last forever, representing the band throughout history, and noting that she usually wants to keep tinkering with tracks until the label makes her hand them in. For a band that relies so much on raw, real emotions, this seems like somewhat of an odd sentiment. A track like “Born with a Broken Heart” soars due to the sparser instrumental letting the cracks and quirks in Frances’ vocals shine. According to the band, that’s all part of the plan as well.

“Different songs ask for different kinds of perfection,” Frances says. “‘Born with a Broken Heart’ was actually the demo vocal, which I recorded thinking we’d re-record it later on a better mic. It turned out that because I had been singing it very casually, not worrying, that was the best delivery for the song. But other times we want my voice to be more like an instrument than a performance in certain aspects.”

“That’s the fun, the times where you shoot for something that’s perfectly manicured – you’re always going to fall short of perfection, and then the humanity sneaks in through those little gaps in your ability to make things perfect,” Bright adds.

Be Still My Heart EP (Sandlot Records, 2023)

The tiny glimpses of humanity manifest themselves in the duo’s songwriting as well. While many of their tracks play up both the drama and the smallest twinges of heartbreak in imagined relationships, the duo let a couple of lines drawn from personal experience sneak into their narratives as well. It all adds to the comfort of the familiar, and the universally relatable experience of getting giddy over a crush – no matter which way the chips eventually fall.

“A song like ‘Always’ is not about a single particular incident,” Bright says. “Everyone in that room writing that song has experienced some version of bumping into an old lover, it didn’t work, or whatever the story is. We don’t go into specifics on what that narrative is, because it leaves it open for whoever’s listening to insert themselves in that story. You can have fictionalized narratives, but with autobiographical truths.”

Some of their lyrics get so vivid and specific that it’s hard to believe that they didn’t come from personal experience. One of them from their latest project – “is your goldfish still alive?” – still manages to capture the feeling of apprehension around how much of your bursting internal feelings to display to a prospective (or former) partner that appears in so much of the duo’s work.

“In the room we were discussing that we needed to have some sort of indication of a level of intimacy where it’s like, I know things about you and I’m checking up on those things,” Frances says. “It’s so funny because it’s so emotionally invasive,” Bright adds. “You run into someone and you’re thinking ‘Hey, I’ll love you forever and ever!’ and instead what you say is ‘Uh, how’s your goldfish?’”

Because the Babygirl catalogue often finds its narrators getting their hopes up about romantic bliss only for them to be ultimately dashed, the initial labelling of their music as being for “fans of falling in love” might seem slightly misplaced at times. But the only people who would be capable of writing songs like these are the kind that truly believe that it’s better to feel all of these feelings than none at all.

“Opening up is definitely worth it, but it’s also very hard. It’s painful to be alive,” Frances says. “The thing with being vulnerable is that you don’t always get vulnerability in return. The scary thing is you have to be like, ‘I’m going to stand here with my heart open, and no matter what happens, I’m going to try and keep it open.’”

“You’re setting yourself up for, potentially, a big plummet,” Bright says. “But I wouldn’t say that’s the thesis statement of the EP. There’s pain in these songs, but that pain doesn’t preclude that joy could follow.”