walking upstream…
Lauv
sourcesThe Line of Best Fit · Wikipedia
Ari Staprans Leff was studying music technology at NYU and pitching songs to other artists when one of them, the breakup song 'The Other,' felt too personal to give away — so he released it himself under the name Lauv, Latvian for 'lion,' honoring his mother's heritage. The 2017 single 'I Like Me Better' turned that instinct into a career, establishing a plainspoken, hook-forward strain of confessional pop built on diaristic, almost over-sharing lyrics rather than vocal showmanship, and making him a fixture of the late-2010s streaming era. He kept writing for others too — Charli XCX's 'Boys,' Cheat Codes and Demi Lovato's 'No Promises' — while consolidating his own catalogue on the sprawling debut album '~how i'm feeling~' (2020) and its 2022 follow-up 'All 4 Nothing.'
the sound in question
2017
I Like Me BetterLauv
walk the tributaries ↓
Paul Simon1970s · Folk rock / Pop / Folk
Picking 'Still Crazy After All These Years' for The Line of Best Fit's 'Nine Songs' series, Lauv called Simon 'a big favourite of mine,' praising 'the way he talks about not trying to say anything or going in consciously with an idea for a song, but discovering what's going on subconsciously.' He's traced his own songwriting method back to stumbling on a Paul Simon interview in college that described writing as uncovering buried feelings rather than engineering a hook.
listen: upstream & here
1975
Still Crazy After All These YearsPaul Simon
2019
FeelingsLauv
listen forSit with the title line of 'Still Crazy After All These Years' next to the plainspoken confession running through 'Feelings' — both hang an entire song on one flatly stated phrase that sounds almost too simple until it lands, meaning more the longer it sits.
John Mayer2000s · Pop rock / Blues / Blues rock
Lauv chose Mayer's 'Comfortable' for the same 'Nine Songs' interview, saying 'it's the detail in which he reminisces on this relationship and compares it to a new situation; it hits me really hard.' He's called himself 'a massive John Mayer fan' elsewhere, pointing to Mayer's habit of pinning a whole song to one specific, almost embarrassingly exact memory rather than a general feeling.
listen: upstream & here
2006
Slow Dancing in a Burning RoomJohn Mayer
2018
There's No WayLauv
listen forCompare 'Slow Dancing in a Burning Room,' where Mayer narrates the exact moment of knowing a relationship is over instead of naming the feeling outright, with Lauv and Julia Michaels trading the same wary, comparison-to-the-last-heartbreak logic across 'There's No Way.'
Coldplay2000s · Alternative rock / Pop rock / Post-Britpop
Rounding out his 'Nine Songs' picks with Coldplay's 'Up in Flames,' Lauv said Chris Martin 'writes the best songs in the fucking world' and singled out the way Coldplay's saddest material 'feel[s] upliftingly sad' and 'make[s] you feel beautiful' rather than simply bleak. That specific alchemy — grief arranged to feel gorgeous instead of grim — is the throughline into his own biggest ballads.
listen: upstream & here
2011
Up in FlamesColdplay
2019
Sad ForeverLauv
listen forPlay 'Up in Flames,' a slow-building falsetto lament that turns heartbreak into something soaring, against Lauv's 'Sad Forever' — a song that names its own sadness in the title and then wraps it in a bright, arena-sized melody so the sorrow feels almost comforting.