Ever the hopeless romantic, Holly Humberstone channels her passion and pain into one on “Into Your Room,” a cinematic, soul-stirring, and all-consuming eruption off ‘Paint My Bedroom Black’ that captures the raw, aching, beautiful brutality of love.
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Stream: “Into Your Room” – Holly Humberstone
But I know a place where the darkness can’t reach us…
– “Into Your Room,” Holly Humberstone
Is she drowning in ecstasy or crying out in agony?
The first question after listening to Holly Humberstone’s “Into Your Room” is surprisingly difficult to answer, and maybe that’s the point: While we’re often conditioned to etch our thoughts in stone and deliver instantaneous, knee-jerk reactions, love is by nature more complicated – and more convoluted.
Love can make you feel happy/sad, and no one can tell you otherwise, or force you to put one definitive label on your emotional experience; just the other day, an artist described their music to me as “melancholic joy,” and as utterly oxymoronic as that sounds, it made perfect sense.
I will run
After your moving car
And I will follow you
Hmm, you’re my northern star
So don’t drive away (don’t you leave it like that, no)
You don’t know how much I need you
Yeah I feel the weight (when you leave me so sad, no)
it’s crushing me
I hate to think how bad I treated you
(Oh yeah)
So it comes as no surprise that there’s more to Holly Humberstone’s latest enchantment than meets the eye; whatever our initial interpretations of her song may be, the more times we listen, the more layers we uncover – and the more her mystery thickens. Holly Humberstone is in love, and all she knows for certain is that, “without you, my soul is eternally doomed.” For as long as we’ve known her, the British singer/songwriter has been forcing us to dig deeper – to open our minds, our hearts, and our souls to all that this wondrous, frightening, and fragile world has to offer. Of course her love song would be a provocative mess – and we mean that with the very best intentions!
Love has a way of breaking us down while building us up; love can be beautiful and damaging all at once, and there’s no two ways about it. Everything comes crashing down as Holly Humberstone revels and reckons her way through “Into Your Room,” an achingly intimate eruption of passion and pain, heartache and nirvana that hits hard in a way that only love can do.
So to answer the question: Is she drowning in ecstasy or crying out in agony? Maybe the easiest answer is, simply, yes.
So maybe, take me
Into your room
Without you my soul is eternally doomed
You’re the centre of this universe
My sorry ass revolves around you
(yeah, yeah)
No I can’t do without you
Released September 21, 2023 via Polydor / Darkroom / Geffen, “Into Your Room” is a love-soaked anthem and lovesick ballad. The latest single taken off Holly Humberstone’s highly anticipated debut album, Paint My Bedroom Black (out October 13, 2023) finds the Grantham native (and Atwood Magazine’s 2023 artist to watch) exposed and vulnerable, sharing her innermost feelings alongside a buoyant and brooding sonic soundscape of warm, dramatic synths and cool, pulsing beats.
Think “Human Nature”-style Michael Jackson and “Follow You Follow Me”-era Genesis: This song is a mood in itself – an escape and an indulgence, unapologetically uplifting and brutally heartbreaking at the same time, just like the love that seems to be slipping from Humberstone’s grasp if she can’t catch it now.
I’m throwing stones at your window
To get you to notice me
Don’t make me stand outside in the pouring rain
With a freshly ripped human heart from my ribcage
And a boom-box
How pathetic babe
Don’t make me stand outside in the pouring rain, with a freshly ripped human heart from my ribcage…
Produced with her longtime collaborator Rob Milton and acclaimed singer, songwriter, and producer Ethan Gruska (Phoebe Bridgers, Fiona Apple), “Into Your Room” is a fresh twist on Humberstone’s signature sound: That vividly raw and vulnerable, breathtakingly visceral music that so effortlessly stops us in our tracks. Written one day “while experimenting with pawn shop-bought instruments and synths,” the emotionally multifaceted tune is an upward and outward expansion: One that resonates with brighter hues and deeper grooves that make it as easy to dance to, as it is to cry with.
So don’t turn away
(don’t you leave it like that, no)
You must know how much I need you, need you
Yeah, I can feel your pain
(I’m in love with your sad soul)
I hate to think how bad I treated you
But I know a place where the darkness can’t reach us
Humberstone explains that she wrote “Into Your Room” as a means of capturing her guilt from not being present in a new relationship; this song, at its core, is a no-holds-barred declaration of her endless and undying love. We certainly feel that all-out rush of blood to the head and the heart as Humberstone spills her guts, gore and all, in the song’s cinematic, irresistibly catchy and cathartic chorus:
Maybe, take me into your room
Without you my soul is eternally doomed
You’re the centre of this universe
My sorry ass revolves around you
(yeah, yeah)
No I can’t do without you
Love is aching, all-consuming, and unapologetic.
It’s not about being happy or sad; it’s about feeling that raw passion burning in our hearts and running through our veins. Following Paint My Bedroom Black‘s previous singles “Antichrist,” “Room Service,” and “Superbloodmoon” (featuring fellow Darkroom-signed singer/songwriter d4vd), “Into Your Room” sees Holly Humberstone at her highest high and lowest low, all in the span of three minutes and thirty seconds.
It’s the soul-stirring soundtrack to those life-changing moments of truth that come so infrequently, that we barely register them when they hit – but what we do in those moments defines who we are, and with the weight of the world crashing down, Holly Humberstone has declared herself a hopeless romantic: “My sorry ass revolves around you.”
Paint My Bedroom Black is out Friday the 13th – because of course it is.
Maybe, take me into your room
Without you my soul is eternally doomed
You’re the centre of this universe
My sorry ass revolves around you, you
Maybe, take me into your room
Without you my soul is eternally doomed
You’re the centre of this universe
My sorry ass revolves around you
No I can’t do without you
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:: connect with Holly Humberstone here ::
Stream: “Into Your Room” – Holly Humberstone
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