Trustfall is a testament to P!nk’s unchallenged prowess as an artist. The singer-songwriter – known for her incredible live performances, odd fashion sense, and for her enviable powerful voice – expertly delivered a record that has the combined powers of making us cry, dance and reflect, and it’s poignantly titled Trustfall.
P!nk started work on the songs that made it into her ninth studio album, Trustfall, when she was at a very uncertain stage in her life. Just days into the world getting shut down as a result of the sweeping coronavirus pandemic, P!nk and her toddler son Jameson, were hit hard by severe cases of the illness. Instead of letting the anxiety weigh her down, she channeled it into some of the songs we hear on Trustfall.
Another unraveling moment came in 2021, when P!nk lost two of her loved ones to cancer – one of them was her father. It made her realize how much she needed to let go of things she can’t control.
Opening with the slow ballad “When I Get There,” P!nk mourns the loss of a loved one and wonders whether the after-life will be a reflection of the one we live here on Earth. Singing, she wonders, “Is there a bar up there where you’ve got a favorite chair? / Where you sit with friends and talk about the weather? / Is there a place you go to watch the sunset?”
We go directly from this incredibly tear-jerking song to her title track “Trustfall” – released three weeks ahead of the arrival of the album this February 17 – where we learn that, sometimes, it’s necessary to ignore the fears and just jump.
In “Turbulence,” P!nk carries on with the message of letting go of our fears and our pains and coming to accept that there will be bumps in the road as we live, no matter how temporary.
“You and I / Happy ending and a tragedy combine,” she sings in the opening lyrics, alerting us to the fact that we’re not yet out of the sad zone. But “Turbulence,” like “Trustfall,” isn’t all about the pain. It’s the kind of song that makes your heart heavy at the start, only for you to get to the ending and realize you feel so much lighter and better.
When you get to the part where she sings, “we should take our own advice,” perhaps it makes you remember the time she advised: “Just let it go, man / Just be a dolphin and let that go right off your back / We have to have joy too / We have to laugh / We have to love / We have to cuddle / We have to suck the marrow out of the bones of life, because we’re still here / The wildfires haven’t come yet.”
As you listen to the songs on this record, you get a sense that P!nk’s purpose is to address the different fears we have inside us – “We’re never getting younger, so I’m gonna have some fun” – and get us to throw it away.
Throughout the 13 tracks on the album, the Grammy Award winner uses poetic phrases like, “Mom always said, “Keep the bad things you do in the closet / When they start overflowin’, you get a house full of problems / When a good tree dies, bad fruit start fallin’,” to get listeners to think deep and appreciate the meaning behind the words.
Lyrically, and judging from the cohesiveness of the album, it deserves all the stars in the world, but taking other elements like the melody of the songs into account, it falls slightly from the perfect score.
The album is a therapeutic journey made up of a jumble of sad, happy and danceable songs. If you ask P!nk why she didn’t try to separate the sad from the happy, she’ll tell you it’s because life doesn’t care to separate it either. You can be happy in the morning and sad in the afternoon. In the same way, you can be sad listening to track one, hopeful listening to track 3, and crushed listening to track 13.