Dutch singer-songwriter Isabel van Gelder knows exactly where heartbreak lives: on the bathroom floor at 3am, mascara running, trying to convince yourself you’re fine.
Her November 2025 single, Bathroom Floor, doesn’t romanticise that moment. It just sits there with you.
The rising artist has been building momentum with emotionally raw releases like Die For You, which went viral earlier this year, and Run, both showcasing her gift for turning personal heartbreak into something universally felt.
With Bathroom Floor, produced by Blanks and Wouter Vingerhoed, she delivers a vulnerable and relatable piece.
The track has already racked up over 400,000 Spotify streams in its first month, proving that raw honesty still cuts through the noise.
The song opens with a piano melody that eases you into the unfolding tension, each chord building slowly as van Gelder’s vocals flow with an aching vulnerability.
It’s eerily beautiful, the way she grabs all the melancholy hanging in the air and transforms it into something profoundly stirring.
Built on a repeating four-chord progression in C minor, the arrangement creates a hypnotic, trapped feeling, like walking in emotional circles with no way out.
The repetition doesn’t feel stale; it feels obsessive, mirroring how heartbreak loops in your mind. The cyclical pattern refuses to resolve or offer escape, keeping you suspended in the same hurt.
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Written entirely by van Gelder, Bathroom Floor tells the story of her best friend’s first heartbreak.
The relationship began as a deep first love, only to end abruptly when her partner walked away. Her friend, someone who rarely opens up about emotional pain, carried the hurt silently.
Van Gelder channelled this quiet ache, writing from her friend’s perspective and crafting something that transcends personal narrative to become universal.
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“I’m over you, I’m over you / Convinced myself, but it’s not true,” she sings, the repetition landing like a confession you make to yourself when no one’s listening.
What makes this chorus so effective is its refusal to resolve. The contradictory loop mirrors the mental gymnastics of trying to convince yourself you’re fine when you’re anything but.
When she reaches “And now I’m on the bathroom floor / My makeup runs the more I pour,” the specificity of the image cuts deeper than any abstract metaphor could.
The bathroom floor becomes the site of private collapse, where composed exteriors dissolve.
Blanks and Vingerhoed’s production pulls back where other producers might push forward.
The piano stays sparse, bass lines appear only when needed, and the synth work hovers just beneath van Gelder’s voice rather than competing with it.
This sonic economy forces you to sit with every word, every crack in her delivery.
By the outro, “Most dreams don’t come true but / Darling I’ll still dream of you,” van Gelder leaves the wound open. No closure, no catharsis, just the honest documentation of what remains.