Jeremy Zucker's "comethru" Is an Ode to His Transitional Summer

comethru
by Jeremy Zucker

[Verse 1]
i might lose my mind
waking when the sun's down
riding all these highs
waiting for the comedown
walk these streets with me
i'm doing decently
just glad that i can breathe, yeah

[Pre-Chorus]
i'm trying to realise
it's alright to not be fine on your own

[Chorus]
mow i'm shaking, drinking all this coffee
these last few weeks have been exhausting
i'm lost in my imagination
and there's one thing that i need from you

[Hook]
can you come through, through
through, yeah
and there's one thing that i need from you
can you come through?

[Verse 2]
ain't got much to do
too old for my hometown
went to bed at noon
couldn't put my phone down
scrolling patiently
it's all the same to me
just faces on a screen, yeah

[Pre-Chorus]
i'm trying to realise
tt's alright to not be fine on your own

[Chorus]
now i'm shaking, drinking all this coffee
these last few weeks have been exhausting
i'm lost in my imagination
and there's one thing that i need from you

[Hook]
can you come through, through
through, yeah
and there's one thing that i need from you
can you come through?

[Outro]
through, through
through, yeah
and there's one thing that i need from you
can you come through?

Comethru, the first song off the EP “summer,” lays out the mindset of J. Zucker as he
transitions to his new lifestyle. Recently graduating from college, watching his friends
moving on to their full time jobs, Zucker finds himself locked in his parents basement
working crazy hours to put out this piece of art. In the Pre Chorus, “I’m trying to realize
It’s alright to not be fine on your own”, Zucker sings about how he is dealing with the idea of
working while his friends are out celebrating their last summer as kids. Leading up to the
Hook, Zucker delivers a melody thats both relatable and lyrically simple, finding yourself
singing along. Then he asks the question we all know to well, “Can you come through”,
reaching out to friends who will help make the lonely times bearable and fun.

“The inspiration for the song was staying at home this past Summer by myself, living
and making music out of my parents' basement. And just feeling lonely all the time. I was
working my ass off every single day, working crazy hours in my basement. And I basically
was just lonely, and I felt like I needed someone to be around me to lift my spirits and live life
differently, I guess. I was in this loop of just working and working, and not taking care of
myself. I just wanted, whether it was a friend or a girl, or just to do something to shake my
day up. I just needed someone to come through.”
I made this song a little differently than a lot of my other songs, normally I’m in front of
my computer and producing and playing a bunch of instruments, and writing the song as I’m
producing it. But for this one, I was just chilling in my room on the guitar. I wrote the whole
song out, and I was like, “Wow, this is amazing. But I have no idea how I’m gonna produce it
out into a whole song.” So actually, we made six different versions of it, all with different
production and all these other things happening. I was sending it to my friends back and forth,
and it took so long to realize that the best version was the stripped down version. It became
this acoustic jam. I decided to keep this one stripped down, because generally I think when
I’m producing, less is more. I’ll lay out a million different ideas with all these different
instruments, and they all tie into each other, and transition perfectly. And in the moment, I’m
like, “This is so crazy,” and it’s so fulfilling to my ears, just being a production nerd. But
when I take a step back and I listen to the song again, I’m really just focusing on the song and
the lyrics and the melody. So sometimes getting rid of a lot of that extra stuff, lets the song
itself shine through. I feel like “come thru” is such an easy song to listen to, and when I was
writing that, I was like, “People are gonna love this.” And it made me feel so good to write it,
and I was so in-the-moment. But I hated working on it for such an extended period of time,
because I feel like an easy song to listen to is, you love it in-the-moment, but I feel like it’s
always short-lived. When you find a song that really hits you deep, it lasts for a long time. So
those songs, I’m so happy to keep going on the production and editing it and making it
amazing and long and cinematic. But with “come thru,” it was so hard. I had to stay in the
mindset to be like, “This is a happy song, I can’t put too much thought into it, or else it’s not
gonna sound happy.”

I might lose my mind

Waking when the sun's down.

When I was writing the song, my sleep schedule was totally backwards. And not
because I was going out at night and partying, and coming back late. It was more, I
was just waking up later and later in the day. And as the Summer months turn to Fall,
the days were getting shorter, so I’d literally wake up and have two hours of sunlight.
I’d just feel weird and shitty about that. I’m just so in my head, I don’t know. If I
make a point to not hang out with people, because I have work to do, it’s gonna take a
toll on me in the long run. Because I’ll just be like, “Okay, I have to do all these
things, and it has to be perfect.” I’m just such a perfectionist, whether it’s writing
music or just my image, or any part of social media. Hanging out with my friends
helps me not think about that, and helps me enjoy myself and live in-the-moment.
Because I just want to live a good life and be happy, I don’t want to be worrying about
all the little problems.

Riding all these highs

Waiting for the comedown
I wrote that line mostly about, not so much about the success with my music, it’s more about the
little things I was doing during that period of time when I was writing the song, to help me stay
sane. I would be in my basement for three or four days, and not really hanging out with anyone,
and just working on music. And then on a Friday night, go out with my friends into the city, and
drink a lot and stay up super late. I was balancing things so drastically, I’d be grinding, grinding,
grinding, and then go out and drink and party, and be like, “Okay, I got my social life in this
week.” Then I’ll go back to working hard.

Walk these streets with me

I'm doing decently
Just glad that I can breathe, yeah
My hometown was so boring. I realize it more and more every time I go home. For
me, home is just a place to see my family and hang out with my family. And my
parents are about to sell our house in New Jersey too, so now I don’t even have a
hometown, which is weird. But the older I get, the less there is there for me. So I think
that line, “Walk these streets with me, I’m doing decently, just glad that I can
breathe,” it’s like, walk these streets with me, it’s like step into my shoes. And this is
what it’s like to live here, and it’s weird. Obviously, my career’s doing well, and I
have friends, but I’m doing decently. I’m not doing bad, but I’m not doing great. I’m
just happy to be alive, sort of thing.

I'm trying to realise

It's alright to not be fine on your own
To me, that line, I feel like I have to convince myself that it’s okay to be sad when
you’re alone, and it’s okay to feel like you need somebody to be with you to feel
better sometimes. I think there’s a lot to be said about acknowledging that sometimes
you need help, you need a support system, you need a friend, you need a peer to talk
to or just live life with. And you can’t be doing everything on your own all the time. I
think it’s just important to accept that you need help.

Now I'm shaking, drinking all this coffee

These last few weeks have been exhausting
I don’t even drink coffee anymore, that line was pulling from my junior year of
college. I was in biochemistry, and waking up every morning and chugging two cups
of McDonald’s coffee. And I was doing great for the first four days, acing all my
exams and studying so much. And not even hanging out with anyone, just working,
working, working. And on the fourth or fifth day of class, I’m just sitting there
listening to the lecture, and all of a sudden my heart starts to race and I’m straight-up
having a panic attack in the middle of class. It was hard for me to contextualize it,
because I didn’t feel stressed or overwhelmed from the class, I was just so amped up
from all this caffeine in my body. I had to go outside and just take a breath. I haven’t
drunk coffee since then.

I'm lost in my imagination

It’s not so much being lost in my imagination, because I think that sounds like a really
awesome thing. I’m just lost in my thoughts, just overthinking. I’ve always been in
my head, I’m definitely an introvert. Growing up, I was super shy. I only really was
friends with someone if I was with them all the time, and it made sense for me to
come out of my shell. I think high school and college for me, helped me, and also this
music thing, helped me break out of my shell and be less of an introvert and less in
my own head. Which is why I enjoy being with people, you know? For me, my music
career allows me to explain parts of myself that I wouldn’t really be able to talk to
someone about. It’s like my artist thing is an extension of my innermost thoughts, and
stuff that I don’t necessarily sit with someone to talk to them about. Which I think
puts me in a really interesting position, because I feel like people who know my music
know me better than some of my friends that don’t listen to my music, if that makes
sense.

Can you come through, through

Through, yeah
And there's one thing that I need from you
Can you come through?
I just wanted a friend to come over, just hang out, and go out and do something that’s
not me sitting in my basement alone. But in the context of the song, it could be a girl,
it could be a homie, yeah. I just wanted to do something else, I felt like I was
exhausting all of my energy on one small part of my life.

Ain't got much to do

It was weird going from college back to New Jersey, because I went from living with
my friends and doing fun shit every single day, to sitting in my basement alone
writing music. The few friends that I still had at home in New Jersey, I would hang
out with occasionally. But I reserved the Summer to be like, “Okay, I’m gonna write a
bunch of music.” Because I was finally done with college, school was always the
thing that I had to worry about. Towards the end, when I was actually making music, I
don’t know. I felt like, I graduated, I’m like, “School’s done, now I can write all this
music.” But I didn’t anticipate the social part of my life, I didn’t expect to lose, to not
be around people as much as I was in college.

Too old for my hometown

I don’t hate my hometown, obviously. I have, some of my best friends are from my
hometown. But it’s just weird, it’s not like I love being home, it’s not I hate being
home. I don’t know what to feel about it, it’s just strange. I think that’s why I wrote
the song, is because I don’t know how I feel about it, so I have to express it. I think
there’s a lot to be said about not knowing how to feel about something, and it’s okay
to not know how to feel about something. But it’s a really confusing complex
emotion, to be like, “I feel weird here and I don’t know why.

Went to bed at noon

Couldn't put my phone down
Scrolling patiently
It's all the same to me
Just faces on a screen, yeah
I would wake up and scroll through my phone for 30 minutes before I even started my
day, and I still do it, and it’s my number one habit that I have to get rid of. It’s just so
unhealthy to wake up, and the first thing you see is a virtual representation of people
that you haven’t even met, online. It’s just a weird way to start your day. I’m scrolling
through my phone, I’m like, “Okay, three more posts, then I’ll put my phone down
and get up and start my day.” And before I know it, 15 minutes pass, and it’s just a
black hole.

A few months ago, 22-year-old singer/songwriter and producer Jeremy Zucker

released a single called "all the kids are depressed" that quickly racked up millions of
plays, then graduated from Colorado College with a degree in molecular biology.
After his eventful spring, Zucker moved back into his childhood home and took
advantage of the downtime to write new music before an upcoming fall tour. So he
headed down to the basement, contemplated the transitional period he found himself
in, and came out with a song called "comethru." Zucker's smooth vocals glide over
bright strums of a guitar as he sings about his summer on the mellow track.
Zucker tells Complex, "'comethru' is basically a response to the way I felt after
graduating college this past May and moving back home to New Jersey into the same
house where I grew up. It felt strange leaving school with a record deal to make music
in my parent's basement. Summer, to me, is supposed to feel like freedom, youth,
happiness. I spent most of my summer alone, writing music in that basement and
figuring out if and where I would move before leaving for tour this fall. 'comethru' is
really a song about balance."
The song will land on an upcoming EP that focuses on Zucker's shift away from
college to a full-time music career. Hear the premiere of "comethru" up top and
continue for a complete list of his upcoming fall tour dates.