“Stilettos on broken bottles,” as she sings on “Dancing on My Own”—and sweat, a friend’s smile strobing in the darkness, the city lights glittering as the train crosses the river, a phone in a cup-speaker in a kitchen at 3 A.M. Robyn has a sonic signature—the story is heartbreak, the sound is euphoria—but she has an existential one, too. Robyn became a single mother in her early forties, and I was moved by the way our conversations situated motherhood as an extension of a lifelong artistic and personal project—the project of seeking intensity and communion and transcendence, exploring the outer reaches of love. It’s a standpoint of ardor and excitement, which feels, to me, intertwined with the way that parents strive to present the world to their children.
Author: Jia Tolentino
Published at: 2026-03-24 22:30:00
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