We’ve written about the Nashville singer-songwriter Melanie MacLaren several times in recent years, from her debut EP Kill My Time back in 2021—a release we described as “indebted to the past and the present without being beholden to either, managing to possess the timeless country spirit without sacrificing any sense of immediacy”—through a series of releases since including the EP Tourist and a collaboration with Lorkin O’Reilly. Most recently single ‘Heaven Is’ caught our attention with its exploration of ideas of the afterlife. “Delivered in an easy country-pop style and with equal helpings of bittersweet feeling and wry humour,” we wrote in June, “it combines existential musings with observations altogether more terrestrial.”
This duality of playful and serious is a signature of the Melanie MacClaren sound, and ‘Heaven Is’ was the first glimpse of a new project which pushes such ideas further. The product of a period marked by experiences of grief, loss and illness, the new songs look to confront life in its truest state. To push beyond the myths we tell ourselves and look at mortality with a clear gaze. New single ‘Get it Back’ continues the mission. A song described as a “GenZ version of ‘Goodbye Earl’ or ‘Excitable Boy'” which looks to evoke difficult experiences with a sound that’s brightly infectious.
Watch the lyric video by Sofie Praestgaard below:
‘Get it Back’ is out now and available from the usual places.