Six songs, plenty of catchy melodies, and a reminder that the people who shape our lives don’t always stay in them.
The first time i listened to Jay Putty’s “The People I Loved and Have Loved Me Back”, I started off thinking it would be just a regular pop song with a good vocal and melody but by the time i was halfway in, it had me in thoughts, thinking about the people I haven’t thought about in a while.
The Nashville-based singer-songwriter has a knack for making personal music feel easy to sit with. His sound leans towards alternative pop, but there is enough shine in the production to give the songs an immediate appeal. The hooks are memorable, his vocals are relaxed and sincere, and nothing feels so overworked that it gets between the listener and the story.
I really loved the idea behind the EP. The artist wasn’t writing the album from the lens of a normal love relationship. Instead, he talked about the messy parts of it, the friends who accept us before we know how to accept ourselves, the people we want more than is good for us, the relationships that fall apart, the memories we wish we could revisit, and the person we hope will still be around when we’re old and grey.
That’s a lot of things to fix into six songs but somehow, Jay did it. This album comes from a place of intentionality and a well thought out composition. Every track looks at a different person, a different kind of attachment, or a different version of ourselves that someone else helped bring to life.
The title The People I Loved And Have Loved Me Back, is a good place to start. It carries a little gratitude, a little regret and the uncomfortable knowledge that not everyone we love will love us in the way we need them to. Some people stay. Some leave. Others are gone before we’re ready. Either way, they become part of the story.
Putty’s previous release, The Compass, dealt with grief and the difficult process of learning to hope again after profound loss. His life has included a devastating house fire, the loss of loved ones to cancer and his own struggles with mental health. Those aren’t small experiences, and they help explain why his songwriting puts so much emphasis on the people around us.
With this new EP, the focus shifts. Rather than looking mainly at how we survive painful experiences, Putty looks at the people who help us through them, along with those who teach us lessons we never asked to learn.
I like to think of it as an interesting progression. Sometimes we spend so much time thinking about what happened to us that we forget to consider who was standing beside us when it did. A friend checks in. Someone listens without trying to fix everything. A person who has known us for years reminds us who we were before life became complicated. Those moments mean everything in the world.
Six songs in one album yet none of them tells the same story.
The song Wild heart starts with the people who get you. It is about the friends who found Putty while he was still trying to become someone he thought deserved to be loved. The idea behind it is simple: the right people don’t require you to keep editing yourself just to earn their approval.
Then comes “Worship,” which takes the EP somewhere less comfortable. There’s a fine line between being completely taken with someone and giving them so much power over your life that you begin to lose your sense of self. When you’re caught up in that kind of attraction, it’s easy to mistake intensity for something lasting. Every message feels important. Every small gesture carries meaning. You can convince yourself that nobody else could ever make you feel this way.
“Memory Lane” is the track that brings the passage of time into focus.
The hardest thing about looking back is realising that you rarely know which moments will matter most until they’re already behind you. You don’t take a photograph of every ordinary afternoon. You don’t stop to memorise the sound of a parent’s laugh. You don’t assume that a familiar voice on the phone will one day become something you would give almost anything to hear again. You just live life.
Some memories do not deserve to be revisited with a smile. Some bring back the version of ourselves who kept hoping a relationship would become what we were promised it would be. That’s where “What We Meant” comes in. The song looks at a relationship in which words and actions no longer line up. It’s a familiar kind of disappointment. Someone tells you that you matter, but you keep feeling like an afterthought.
Imagine knowing that the world was about to end. No more plans to make, no unfinished career goals to chase, no reason to worry about what anyone thinks of you. Where would you go, and who would you want beside you? That’s the question behind “End With You.”
Jay Putty’s answer to this question is not complicated. He wants to be with the person who feels like home. Not at some grand final celebration. Not collecting one last achievement. Just beside someone whose presence matters more than anything he might leave unfinished.
The EP closes with “Growing Old,” a song that trades the uncertainty of earlier tracks for the hope of a shared future.
Its vision of love isn’t particularly flashy. There’s no need for an elaborate gesture or a perfect cinematic ending. The dream is to keep choosing the same person, year after year, until the life you’ve built together becomes something you can look back on with quiet satisfaction.
One of the central images is a hallway lined with photographs. Picture the years represented there: holidays, family occasions, birthdays, ordinary days at home and the moments that seemed unremarkable when they happened. Together, they tell the story of two people who have lived a life alongside each other.
That’s a profound way to think about success. Not as a number in a bank account or a list of things you’ve achieved, but as the collection of people, places and memories that make your life yours.
This track leaves the listener feeling softer than they felt at the beginning of the album. Taking a deep look at every track, The People I Loved And Have Loved Me Back remains an enjoyable pop listen. The EP is easy to imagine playing during a long drive, especially when the road gives you enough time to think about things you would normally push to the back of your mind. But it also works as straightforward pop music.
Putty’s music comes from a personal place, but he doesn’t make the listener work through every detail of his life to understand it. His experiences with loss, hardship and mental health inform the writing, yet the songs leave room for other people to recognise their own relationships in the stories.
For me, the title says almost everything. We all have people we loved and people who loved us back. Some are still around. Some exist mostly in memory. Some taught us what to look for, while others taught us what not to accept again.
Jay Putty has made an Ep about those people and he gives you (the listener) enough room to think about yours.
Give it a listen. You might arrive for the melodies, but don’t be surprised if you leave thinking about someone you should probably call.
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