Carly Rae Jepsen posted a five-word question to Instagram from Nicaragua on March 2: “Is love just a feeling?” She didn’t add anything else to the message.
For anyone who doesn’t follow her closely, a bit of background helps. Jepsen is a Canadian pop singer best known for “Call Me Maybe,” the song that hit number one in more than a dozen countries in 2012 and turned into one of the bigger pop moments of that decade. It was hard to escape that summer.
She’s kept making music since then. It’s gotten more introspective with each release. Her 2015 album “Emotion” is genuinely loved by pop fans and critics. It focused on longing and heartbreak in a way that felt more personal than most mainstream pop. “Dedicated” followed in 2019. Her most recent full release, “The Loneliest Time,” came out in October 2022. It was well reviewed and included a duet with Rufus Wainwright on the title track.
Jepsen is also known for her writing process. She reportedly recorded around 200 songs for “Emotion” and released only 12. The rest became something of a legend among her listeners, shared in bootleg form over the years.
So when she puts philosophical questions about love out into the world, she isn’t exactly wandering off-topic. Love is basically her subject matter.
What’s less clear is why she was in Nicaragua. Jepsen is from Mission, British Columbia. She hasn’t said anything about the purpose of the trip, and no public event in the country has been announced.
The question itself has a long history. Philosophers and psychologists have spent a lot of time on it. Some say love is an emotion, something that shows up strong and then shifts or fades. Others treat it more like a practice, something chosen and renewed over time. Jepsen’s lyrics have always sat somewhere between those two ideas. Her songs tend to feature people who feel love hard and also can’t quite explain it.
As of today, there’s no new album announcement from her. “The Loneliest Time” is still her most recent record. Things have been quiet on the new music front.
That makes a post like this easy to read too much into. There’s no obvious sign it was teasing anything specific. She may have been in Central America, had a thought, and typed it out. That happens.
