“Cool Inside” Is a Gentle Wake-Up Call From Lena & van Dorst
If you’ve spent the last three hours scrolling through strangers’ vacation photos while sitting in your pajamas, I’ve got something beautiful for you. This song by Rotterdam duo Lena & van Dorst is calling you out. The song’s titled “Cool Inside,” and it is a gentle, catchy nudge to put the phone down and actually go outside.
The story behind the band is honestly something a lot of us can relate to. Suzanne Lena had been writing songs for years but let them pile up on her piano. At a party, a relative asked if she was still making music, and she said, “No, I don’t have time. I gave up on that dream.” That answer bothered her so much that she called her old friend Pepijn van Dorst and decided to finally make it happen.
They recorded the track in Pepijn’s studio in the Old West of Rotterdam. For Suzanne, it was like a homecoming to the neighborhood where she first started writing. You can hear that comfort in the music. It’s a mix of pop and rock that takes cues from greats like Kate Bush, Sting, and Pink Floyd, but it doesn’t sound like a copy of any of them. It just sounds like two friends messing around with ideas until they found something they loved.
The song itself talks about how we all get stuck in our “cool” indoor lives, obsessed with screens and daily distractions. We get so busy watching other people live online that we forget to have our own lives. It’s got a great melody and a raw, honest feel that makes the message go down easy without feeling like a lecture. There’s even a sound of birds at the end, which Suzanne says is a symbol for the call of nature.
It’s refreshing to hear a band that isn’t trying to fit into a specific trend or win a popularity contest. They just wanted to make something meaningful that speaks to the soul, and they definitely nailed it. “Cool Inside” is a beautiful reminder that the world is much bigger than your living room.
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