Soft and soulful, tender and dreamy, nicholas’ sweet summer song “Belinda” aches with the warm, well-worn weight of longing for lost love.
Stream: “Belinda” – nicholas
Love is a lot of things – exciting and comforting, complex and multifaceted, nuanced and provocative, endlessly multidimensional, as effortless as it is challenging… the list goes on. Every love story is unique, and love grows and changes as we ourselves grow and change. It knows no bounds, and maybe that’s why we, humans, are so obsessed with that word for which there are so many other words, and yet no other words.
In contrast to love, longing seems relatively (and deceptively) simple. From day one, as babies we long for a guardian’s embrace; that grasp that helps us feel safe from the world when we’re at our most vulnerable. Years before we can comprehend love, we know what it is to be without another’s touch, and to want someone’s presence so badly that we scream out for it.
The older we get, the less we scream, each of us instead finding new, slightly less disruptive ways of expressing ourselves and those innermost, primal emotions imbued to us at birth. Nick McMillan’s latest single under his artist name nicholas is one such release: Soft and soulful, his sweet summer song “Belinda” aches with the warm, well-worn weight of longing for lost love. Through tender, dreamy melodies and a lightweight musical performance, the singer/songwriter bares his tortured heart – exposing a piece of himself for all to see, hear, and feel what is at once a deeply intimate, personal, and universally relatable emotional experience.
Sitting on a boat at sea
Waiting on a lonesome dream
Come home, come home, Belinda
Come home, come home to me
Been around enough to see
The remnants of a tortured dream
Come home, come home, Belinda
Come home to comfort me
Love it never comes for free
Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “Belinda,” nicholas’ third single of the year (out August 14, 2024). The release follows 2023’s debut LP HEAT ISLAND EFFECT – a lush, experimental R&B album that helped formally “introduce” the Chicago multi-instrumentalist as a provocative, dynamic voice in the Midwest’s indie scene.
The tracks he has gone on to release this year have captured yet another side to what is becoming a truly multi-dimensional artistry, with the songs “888-BE-BRAVE,” “loose leaf,” and now “Belinda” highlighting McMillan’s vulnerability through rawer folk sounds.
“Belinda” is a co-release with fellow Chicagoan songwriter and producer Marcus Darling and Braden Couch, and features beloved Chicago soul singer Manasseh and Rhea the Second. Together, this formidable crew brings to life the visceral sentiment driving nicholas’ soul-stirring lyrics: “Love, it never comes for free.”
Traipse around the evergreen
Light above it covers me
Unsure of what’s ahead
Saline flows and graze my cheek
Love never comes for free
Love never comes for free
Return to me
“‘Belinda’ is an expression of longing,” nicholas tells Atwood Magazine. “Nothing hurts like love lost, and often we don’t know if or when it will return. The song brings us serenity and hope when surrendering to the unknown.”
Love never comes for free…
“Belinda” is the poignant, bittersweet confessional of a heavy, broken heart missing the one he loves the most.
“Come home, come home…” nicholas’ words are a gentle plea, expressing something all-too familiar with anyone who’s loved and lost. Stream “Belinda” exclusively on Atwood Magazine, and stay tuned for more to come as the Chicago artist continues to reveal new sides to himself, through beautiful, breathtaking singing and songwriting, over the coming months!
Sitting on this lonesome stream
Guess I’ll see you in my dreams
Come home, come home, Belinda
Come home, come home to me
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:: stream/purchase Belinda here ::
:: connect with nicholas here ::
Stream: “Belinda” – nicholas
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© Tim Nagle
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