Sabrina Carpenter's "Don't Smile"

Heartbreak Heaven, Lucky Number '77

PART ONE: SHOWER TEARS

I’m standing in the shower, quietly weeping, hoping the sound of water and the humidity drown out my tears. I’m completely naked and alone, experiencing the worst heartache of my life so far. The mirrors are foggy, the air is heavy, and I’m not sure what life is supposed to be like anymore. Time slows down as I replay all the moments that led me here.

“Don’t Smile” by Sabrina Carpenter transported me back to that time when the grief was just too much to handle. The song, like that moment in my life, feels like it’s in slow motion—just half a beat behind where you think you should be. It brims with the raw emotions that flood in right after a breakup, when you’re so sad that you haven’t even reached the gratitude-journal phase of healing.

Sabrina on the song title in an interview with Zane Lowe: “That saying is something that was just so… it’s on every Pinterest board. On every sewn pillow you’ve ever seen. But…the opposite. ‘Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.’ Yeah, and I was like, ‘Fuck that!’ Like actually, fuck that.”

PART TWO: BEHIND THE GROOVE

“Don’t Smile” is a slow, sensual, slick, and groovy closing track on Carpenter’s latest album Short n’ Sweet. Clocking in at 3:26, the John Ryan & Julian Bunetta-produced track is the second longest (and final) song on the album.

My introduction to Carpenter was “Tornado Warnings” from her 2023 album emails i can’t send fwd:. As a huge Julia Michael’s fan, “Tornado Warnings” caught my attention immediately with Michaels’s distinctive and raw lyrical style. Just how I can hear Michaels in any song she’s written—whether her vocals are featured or not—“Don’t Smile” caught my ear too, but because I couldn’t precisely place my finger on where I’d heard this sound before. Who could I attribute this earworm to? 

The credited writers are Sabrina Carpenter, Amy Allen, Steph Jones, John Ryan, and Julian Bunetta. Being mostly unfamiliar with Carpenter’s catalog, I initially wanted to dismiss her and this song as “just the way pop songs are made.” Which is to falsely say, “Sabrina is just a great singer and performer with a great team of songwriters behind her. This isn’t her sound, but the sound of her writers.”

I know, I know.

I still have much to learn about Carpenter’s skillset as a songwriter for pieces she didn’t also perform. What is obvious, though, is that Sabrina has a personal connection with R&B/soul, having proclaimed her Philadelphia upbringing gave her Etta James and Whitney Houston as inspirations. 

I dug into all the non-Carpenter writers, scouring their songwriting credits and poring over their back catalogs, in desperate search of who’s responsible for this wavy, groovy sound. It’s easy to get distracted by John Ryan’s contribution to Pitbull’s epic “Fireball” or his and Julian Bunetta’s probable double-handed responsibility for One Direction’s entire success.

It wasn’t until I got to Amy Allen that things clicked. I scrolled through her songwriter profile until I finally heard it: “Forever” by Charlotte Day Wilson & Snoh Aalegra from Cyan Blue (2023). Without tempting myself to do a deep dive on “Forever,” just to take a listen…

The noted similarities:

• There’s a fuzzy, underwater quality

• An acoustic, out-of-tune piano (check out “(No One Knows Me) Like the Piano” by Sampha if you’re into this)

• At 2:38, the beat gets a little more hip-hoppy and swangy. I think the credit goes to Snoh; it also reminded me of “Swang” by Rae Sremmurd

• A highly repeated refrain and setting sure to be an earworm

There’s something about blue-eyed soul being executed so well… It’s clean, easy to latch onto, and just funky enough to garner crossover attention.

Sonically, there are quite a few sounds that caught my ear: the country undertones with the slide guitar or delay pedal (1:27), the semi-psychedelic vibe with the electric guitar, the choice to keep her inhales noticeably audible (0:23), and the decision to slowly fade the song to its conclusion (3:00).

While Bunetta likely contributed the drums (in lieu of stomps and claps), Jones the lyrics (a la extensive work with vulnerable female singer-songwriters), and Bunetta the “oh this shit will sell” oversight, I’m tempted to give Allen all her flowers here. A surface-level reading of her catalog suggests she has the most experience with R&B-adjacent spaces to authentically replicate the parts that make this song more than just pure pop. Her skills and contributions, combined with those of the others, give “Don’t Smile” the “everybody put your flashlights on!” arena singalong moment.

PART THREE: SABRINA NIGHT FEVER

Before there were phone flashlights in arenas, there were lighters. And before there was Sabrina Carpenter, there was Stevie Nicks. I’m not bold or comfortable enough with being wrong to directly compare the two artists, but I am bold enough to say that “Don’t Smile” may be the Gen Z version of “Dreams” (1977). In addition to some of the musical elements that align (the aforementioned delay pedal sound, mellow groove, atmospheric background, etc.), these are both epic post-breakup songs.

I will be the first to admit that I am NOT chronically online. I hear there’s “lore” around Sabrina Carpenter, Shawn Mendes, and Camila Cabello. If you’re looking for a deep tabloid-style lyrical analysis, you won’t find it here. Carpenter shared in the same Zane Lowe interview that the song was about her friend experiencing a fresh breakup. I’ll take her her word for it.

I can hear both Nicks and Carpenter rolling their eyes in the back of their heads as they sing “you’ll know, oh you’ll know” and “you can fake it, but you know I know,” respectively. Through the hurt and the sadness, there’s a flippant energy directed at their ex-lovers. But, like in real life, they only got there after expressing their loneliness and calling for their exes to miss and remember their time together. Before that, there was begging. Carpenter croons for the first time at 01:37: “I want you to miss me,” echoing another 1977 hit, “I Want You to Want Me” by Cheap Trick.

As Carpenter shared her Philadelphia and soul-inspired musical roots, it became clear this groove I’ve been feeling may have originated with The Sound of Philadelphia (TSOP). Benjamin Wallace and Robert Huber for The Philadelphia Journal: “Musically, TSOP was sophisticated soul for grown-ups, combining gospel vocals, a funked-up rhythm section, and smooth-as-silk strings and horns.” TSOP originated in the late ’60s and ’70s, paving the way for disco in the late ’70s.

And wouldn’t you know it, Saturday Night Fever, known in music history as the catalyst for bringing disco to the mainstream, was also released in 1977. On the soundtrack is the crying-on-the-dance-floor banger “If I Can’t Have You” by Yvonne Elliman, played over a scene with Donna Pesci as Annette and John Travolta as Tony recapping a date they had. (I can’t help but also compare Carpenter’s current hairstyle with Annette’s here). Elliman’s song is pleading and desperate: “Can’t let go, and it doesn’t matter how I try. I gave it all so easily to you, my love. To dreams that never will come true.” Sabrina, in a similar state of woe, sings: “My heart is heavy now, it’s like a hundred pounds. It’s fallin’ faster than the way you love to shut me down.”

IN CONCLUSION

I’m not quite sure what Carpenter’s karmic connection with the year 1977 is, but “Don’t Smile” captures the classic, over-romanticized yearning of not being with the one you love while flipping the tired advice to smile through the pain into something modern. The song is an amalgamation of each contributing songwriter’s unique gifts and the influences of birthplace and soul; ultimately, it’s the perfect example of how no song is created in a vacuum.

So, whatever happened to me after that tragic crying session in my shower? I moved out, I moved on, and began to sip on that me Espresso.

---