B-Side Guys

Liverpool songwriter Luke O’Hanlon uses relativity theory as a framework for examining how two people can drift apart while experiencing the same timeline. “Einstein’s Twin” transforms the famous thought experiment—where one twin travels at light speed while the other stays home, aging at different rates—into a meditation on how choices create irreversible emotional distances.

O’Hanlon’s lyrics operate on multiple temporal planes simultaneously. The opening contrast between “captain of industry” and “sparrow who was lost at sea” establishes divergent paths, while the line “Infant to ancient in the time it took to take a second look” collapses decades into a single moment of recognition. His voice carries the weight of someone documenting damage already done, delivering observations like “There is a distance in your brothers face that was not there before” with quiet devastation.

The song’s structure mirrors its thematic preoccupation with irreversible change. Each verse charts further drift—siblings becoming strangers, familiar faces acquiring foreign distances. O’Hanlon’s reference to “slouching towards Bethlehem” borrows Yeats’ apocalyptic imagery to suggest that some transformations can’t be undone, no matter how much we might wish otherwise.

His stark acoustic arrangement refuses to soften these hard truths with unnecessary ornamentation. The production keeps focus on the lyrical density, allowing phrases like “feeling your absence like an amputee” to land with full impact. There’s something particularly effective about how he handles the recurring river metaphor—suggesting that while currents might carry you away from home, they rarely provide return passage.

“Einstein’s Twin” succeeds because O’Hanlon understands that the most painful distances aren’t geographical but relational. His scientific metaphor illuminates how two lives can diverge even when they begin from identical starting points, leaving one twin wondering how they became strangers to someone who once shared their exact trajectory.