Singer/Songwriter Freya Ward Finds Renewal in Beautiful EP ‘Written with Hindsight’

A beautiful, expansive folk record brimming with heartfelt emotion, Written with Hindsight finds singer/songwriter Freya Ward at the apex of intimacy.

‘Written with Hindsight’ [EP] – Freya Ward

Embarking on Freya Ward’s new EP is like taking the first steps away from the heat of summer, and into a cool autumn breeze. The music is sweet, yet tinged with the weight of reflection; full of movement, yet also characterized by a moving stillness. A beautiful, expansive folk record brimming with heartfelt emotion, Written with Hindsight finds singer/songwriter Freya Ward at the apex of intimacy.

What is going on?
Is it me, or is there something wrong?
Tell me honestly, do you want to be here?
Do you want to be here?
Or be released, or be free
There’s something else inside
I see it in your eyes – I see it in your eyes
There’s no shame in wishing it was yesterday
In wishing you could fly away

So lull yourself to sleep
Sink into your dreams
And darling I will meet you there

Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering Freya Ward’s sophomore EP Written with Hindsight, independently out November 8, 2019. A folk singer/songwriter from Devon, UK, Ward arrives out of the prestigious LCV choir having sung with everyone from Laura Mvula to Imogen Heap. Working with producer Matthew Lowe, she began releasing her own music a year ago; her debut single “I Followed a Bird” now has over 23,000 streams on Spotify alone.

Following 2018’s debut EP By the Sea, Written with Hindsight finds Ward beginning to build up her folk songs while maintaining the stirring immediacy that makes her music so alluring to begin with. “The EP is a breakup record written way after the event – when the benefit of space and time allows you to admit or realise feelings that maybe weren’t clear at the time,” she tells Atwood Magazine. Centered around her vocals and acoustic guitar, the EP weaves listeners through first-person narratives of tension, heartache, reflection, and catharsis.

“Hindsight means the understanding of an event only after it has happened – and to me, Written with Hindsight is a perfect title for this EP,” Ward says. “The EP charts the breakdown of a relationship, and personal transformation, and the healing process afterwards – but I don’t think I could have written a single one of these songs when the breakup had just happened and the wound was too new. It would have been way too painful and confusing, and I don’t think I would have been able to be honest with myself about why certain things really happened – including accepting my own failings. Written with Hindsight is a breakup record, but it’s not a broken-hearted one – it’s got elements of pain and anger in there, but by the end it changes into reconciliation, love and the process of moving on.”

I would do it all again
I’d pick up my shoes
and I’d run with my hand
holding tight onto yours
Like you’re anchoring me,
so I don’t fly away with the wind

– “I Would Do It All Again,” Freya Ward

From the breathtaking vulnerability of opener “Say Something,” to the acceptance and appreciation in the EP’s enriching closer “I Would Do It All Again,” Ward takes us through her personal reconciliation. Songs like “Go Easy on Me” and “Lull Yourself to Sleep” are as catchy as they are personal overhauls that leave their mark. As Ward herself states, Written with Hindsight is not a sad, tearjerker record – though there are certainly elements in there. Rather, its music is one of rejuvenation; of finding strength in solitude, and learning to truly love oneself. Released as the Northern Hemisphere leaves are finalizing their transformation from green to brown, Written with Hindsight is an utterly beautiful, stirring folk soundtrack to renewal and change.

Experience the full record via our exclusive stream, and peek inside Freya Ward’s Written with Hindsight EP with Atwood Magazine as the artist goes track-by-track through the music and lyrics of her latest EP!

‘Written with Hindsight’ [EP] – Freya Ward

:: Inside Written with Hindsight ::

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Say Something

I wrote the opener of the EP in one writing session and it took me by surprise. I was playing around on the piano and this song and melody just came tumbling out of me, almost as it is now – I didn’t rewrite it, or re-craft the words or melody – it’s almost exactly as I played it the first time. This was the beginning of the whole EP writing process; I hadn’t realised I was still angry until I wrote Say Something and I realised I had some things to work through. 

Go Easy On Me

I wrote ‘Go Easy On Me’ after some introspection, when I was starting to face up to my failings as a person and the role that I played in everything breaking down. I wrote the guitar opener originally intending to be a totally different uplifting track, but Go Easy On Me is what came out. It’s what I should have said at the time.

Lull Yourself to Sleep

‘Lull Yourself to Sleep’ is a bit of a sad lullaby. It sounds morbid but at the time it was about wanting to go to sleep and not wake up because everything was too much to cope with and tomorrow seemed like it wouldn’t be any better. I wrote it when I was feeling pretty down and overwhelmed but the process helped me turn those feelings into something productive.

That Place Where I Belong

‘That Place Where I Belong’ started off as a a song written in a moment of weakness, when I wanted to put everything back to how it was, before I set the wheels in motion transforming my life as I knew it. As I wrote it, however, it merged to also become about home, and growing up and getting older. I’m still not sure which it applies to more.

After Everything, & Me

‘After Everything & Me’ is the most upbeat track of the six. It’s sort of a ‘no hard feelings’ track – addressed to both myself and the other person. It’s a moving up and moving on track, that acknowledges that two lives were once intertwined, and are no longer.

I Would Do It All Again

The closing track, I Would Do It All Again, is the most simple – it’s pure, just one track of my guitar and one track of my vocal. Fittingly, I wrote it last out of all the songs on the record. I think writing the others allowed me to work through some things – and this track is me saying ‘I forgive you, I forgive us’ and allowing myself to remember the good times.

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