Arizona-based singer/songwriter Victoria Bigelow takes us track-by-track through her achingly intimate EP ‘Songs for No One Vol. 1,’ a brutally vulnerable, cathartic, and all-consuming record that finds her channeling her anxiety and depression into breathtaking, soul-stirring musical beauty.
for fans of Lana Del Rey, Boygenius, Holly Humberstone
Stream: “Panic Room” – Victoria Bigelow
“I‘ll never open myself up like this again,” Victoria Bigelow sings in a moment of raw reckoning, her heart bruised and soul exposed to the world. And yet, we know she will, because she always does. The beautifully devastating title track off the singer/songwriter’s latest EP is achingly bare and brutally honest, which makes it the quintessential Victoria Bigelow song: Intimate, vulnerable, and breathtaking.
And if “Song for No One” is all those things in shortform, then Songs for No One Vol. 1 is all of them in longform: A soul-stirring and cinematic EP full of tenderness, turbulence, and tragedy, Bigelow’s latest collection sends shivers down the spine as grief, depression, anxiety, and all of our invisible specters are brought to life through five cathartic, confessional, all-consuming songs.
Sometimes I wake up
In my sleep screaming
A cold sweat, nightly
Awakes me, I’m freezing
My future, it haunts
My past, it looms just above my bed
But I hold my breath
And baby when I count to 10
I open up
You tell me that you love me
You love all the little things
The stupid shit I do
And wake me up when everything is over
And the world is calm
And tell me I’m your baby
I hate all these feelings
And the moment that they grew
They grew and grew and grew
– “Panic Room,” Victoria Bigelow
Released August 25, 2023 via Immortal Records, Songs for No One Vol. 1 is a heartrending seduction of intense, unfiltered melancholia. Bigelow’s fourth EP sees the three-time Atwood Magazine Editor’s Pick at her most intimate and unabridged as she sings of isolation, loss, and longing; love and heartbreak; despair, desire, and bittersweet hope – all of which is channeled through a lens that, despite the record’s yellow artwork, comes to us in shades of dreamy, forlorn blue.
“The story really begins with me moving to the desert,” Bigelow tells Atwood Magazine. “I had been living in Nashville and hating it, and I desperately wanted to just be somewhere I thought was beautiful and serene. When we moved, I had some grief cobwebs to get out of the way, and once I did I began writing what would become this body of work.”
“After I released ‘Song For No One’ in November I was approached by Immortal Records who I just recently signed with. So this record has been a lot of my darkest, innermost thoughts and the things I struggle with, my fears, etc… paired with a lot of tears and gratitude that I still get to do this and make music that might help people feel connected. Vol. 2 is coming soon!”
“This feels like the first thing I’ve ever released as an artist,” she smiles. “Leading up to this I was experimenting a lot with writing styles and production, but this time I feel like I had a clear vision about the world I was trying to create, and I feel really proud of it. I love every single song on this EP, and I haven’t felt that way before.”
Born in the desert, Songs For No One Vol. 1 resonates with an intense, beautiful stillness.
Dwelling in her depths is Bigelow’s de facto state; expressing those depths in song is her preferred method of emotional release.
“I didn’t have a vision for this record,” she explains. “I was just writing and wanted to write the best songs I’d ever written. I wrote most of them on the piano instead of on the guitar, and that opened up a whole new world for me. I just wanted to document where I was at in those moments and be brutally honest about it. The vision for it kind of revealed itself as I went along and kept creating. Towards the end I realized I had written a record but I wasn’t ready to release one yet. So I decided to make sister EPs, Songs For No One Vol. 1 & 2. Vol. 1 is out, and I’m so excited to start sharing Vol. 2!”
Bigelow describes Songs for No One Vol. 1 as nostalgic, dusky, and contemplative. The record’s title, she says, is an homage to the track of the same name. “[It’s] because I love the song ‘Song For No One,’ and that’s exactly what these songs are – songs for no one. It’s daunting putting out music in the current climate with TikTok stars and everyone seeking virality. It’s easy to feel hopeless about it all. So that’s essentially what the title means, feeling like, ‘Well, no one might ever really hear these but I’m going to write them anyway because I have no choice.’”
The EP opens with the emotional wreckage of “Oblivion,” a beautifully brutal track originally released in September of last year. Channeling Bigelow’s pain into redemption, it proves a fitting introduction to the overall record – aching with intimate intensity, heart-on-sleeve passion, and unabating drive. Like a musical-emotional scar, it bleeds through captivating melodies and haunting vocal lines that send shivers down the spine: “I was dancing around the room in the dark ‘til you wrecked my soul,” Bigelow sings, her lilt soft and (bitter)sweet. “You split me right in two. Now I’m dancing, my head in my hands, ‘cause I met you.” This is exactly the kind of gut-wrenching, soul-stirring songwriting we’ve come to cherish over the past few years.
That’s just how it goes
When you’re on the road
And you’re searching for someone
To make you think you’re not alone
That’s just how it feels
In pursuit of what’s real
In pursuit of what’s true
Well baby, my knuckles are bloodied for you
The record’s title track follows with a captivating outpouring of love and grief. “Song for No One” is a dreamy and raw reckoning; taking cues from “the desert and Mazzy Star,” Victoria Bigelow’s art is at once intimate and cinematic, impressively minimalist and yet drenched in the ethereal stuff that makes dreams feel like dreams. “Song for No One” is lush, warm, and definitively forlorn ensemble of mellow and moody instruments that come together, with a great deal of reverb and some clever arranging, to create a space that is at once wondrous, heavy, and light.
“I want to feel how you do when you’re stoned,” Bigelow sings from the start, her voice hot on the mic while addressing a silent presence in the room. Immediately, she conveys this sense of yearning and longing to connect to worlds beyond her immediate grasp. “I’ve never been to the places you go. I take one hit and convince myself everyone’s bored of me.” Rather than find herself in a Wonderland free from care, her anxiety spikes and panic ensues. “You say ‘it’s all in your head, baby,’ well, that’s the problem.” A rosy electric guitar complements her vocal melody as glistening pianos provide background contrast.
The air is already hot with stirring emotion and dazzling sound, and Bigelow is barely 45 seconds in. She continues to lay herself on the line, addressing and admitting to the faults, fractures, and imperfections that ultimately make her human and all the more relatable to her awe-struck audience:
Sometimes I let myself get so depressed
I get angry with you, the reaction you get from me
You told me I am more fun
with a drink in my hand
So now I drink as much as I can
So, what’s the problem
Bigelow has said in the past how “Song for No One” is “about having panic attacks while stoned, wishing you could turn your brain off, always being the “problem,” and how your own neuroses (addiction, anxiety, depression) will ruin any relationship if you let them. It’s also about the heartbreak you feel pushing someone away who’s seen you at your worst, and the grief associated with feeling like you’ll never feel seen again.”
“Song for No One” hits its cathartic climax in an outro-slash-chorus that finds the preceding three verses’ emotional turmoil spilling out in a frenzied, forceful, and utterly intoxicating rush. “I’ll never open myself up like this again,” Bigelow erupts, singing this mantra over and over again with devastating grace. She is accepting this pain; this bitter truth of identity and understanding, that in letting go of someone who has seen her through so much, she is also letting go of a part of herself.
I wanna feel how you do when you’re stoned
I’ve never been to the places you go
I take one hit and convince myself that everyone’s bored of me
You say, “It’s all in your head, baby”
Well, that’s the problem
Sometimes I let myself get so depressed
I get angry with you, the reaction you get from me
You told me I am more fun with a drink in my hand
So now I drink as much as I can
So what’s the problem?
I’ll set the scene, now you’ve seen all I have up my sleeve
All the pretty and the frighteningly bad
I don’t think I’ve ever felt such a sense of relief
As the day that you turned from me
Now I’m not your problem
Let it be known that at this point, we are only two songs into Songs for No One. The EP’s final three tracks continue the musical and emotional onslaught. Full of both pain and love, “Panic Room” is a visceral, churning ballad that exorcises Bigelow’s inner demons by exposing them to the – all whilst the narrator’s loving partner devotedly sticks with them, by their side through the storm:
But I hold my breath
And baby when I count to 10
I open up
You tell me that you love me
You love all the little things
The stupid sh* I do
And wake me up when everything is over
And the world is calm
And tell me I’m your baby
I hate all these feelings
And the moment that they grew
They grew and grew and grew
– “Panic Room,” Victoria Bigelow
“I struggle with anxiety and depression. I tend to ruminate and can really lose myself when I’m spinning out,” Bigelow says. “The verses are simply just me talking to myself about the things that I think and feel and how I feel paralyzed by them, and the choruses are kind of sweet because it’s about a partner or someone you love reminding you to breathe and loving you through those moments. I don’t write love songs, but this one is kind of one.”
The EP’s penultimate track “Low” is a throwback – it’s the first song Bigelow ever released, back in 2019 – and its themes of self-doubt and fearing loneliness fit perfectly in the scope of this EP. Songs for No One Vol. 1 concludes with “Age of the Internet (Nudes),” a soul-crushing musical doomscroll reflecting on how Bigelow “let the internet and social media destroy me.” It’s the sound of her spinning out, and aching in all the best and worst ways imaginable – making it the perfect conclusion to this breathtaking, heartbreaking endeavor.
For Bigelow, two special tracks stand out above the rest – at least, they do right now. “I love ‘Song For No One’ and ‘Age Of The Internet (Nudes)’ a lot, but it’s really hard to choose because I’m proud of all of them,” she says on the topic of favorites. She adds a few meaningful lyrics as well:
“I wave hello
And I dance with my ghosts
I am a 21st century joke” – Age Of The Internet
“I’ll set the scene
Now you’ve seen all I have
Up my sleeve, all the pretty
And the frighteningly bad” – Song For No One
“No, I’m not unique
Not even in my afflictions
My sadness feels cheap
It’s a buzzword, a new addiction” – Panic Room
“I took it bad, like anybody would
When I found out
I was too young to know
How to be any good” – Oblivion
Despite their weight, these five brutally intimate tracks fill our lives with light.
There’s a cathartic comfort to Songs for No One that, as Bigelow has said herself, really does make them songs for everyone.
Out of her emotional anguish, Victoria Bigelow has once again created true blue beauty.
“Truly, I just hope people feel seen and like they’re not alone, wherever they’re at,” she shares. Experience the full record via our below stream, and peek inside Victoria Bigelow’s Songs for No One Vol. 1 EP with Atwood Magazine as she goes track-by-track through the music and lyrics of her latest release!
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:: stream/purchase Songs for No One here ::
:: connect with Victoria Bigelow here ::
‘Songs for No One Vol. 1’ – Victoria Bigelow
:: Inside Songs for No One Vol. 1 ::
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Oblivion
I wrote this song and “Panic Room” and “Age Of The Internet (nudes)” all within a few days of each other. “Oblivion” was the first one I officially wrote for this project, and I was in a really reflective place. Approaching the later years of my 20’s, I wanted to share the journey I had been on up until that point. Heartbreak, having a baby, grief, going no contact with some family members… There was a lot I hadn’t given myself the opportunity to fully process so that’s what this song was for me.
Song for No One
This is one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written. The title is a reference to “Song For Zula” by Phosphorescent, which is one of my favorite songs. It’s psycho babble, recognizing that the neuroses that plague you end up seeping into your closest relationships. It’s a song for everyone and no one in particular.
Panic Room
I remember really loving this song when I wrote it. I’m actually going to film the music video for it this week! I struggle with anxiety and depression. I tend to ruminate and can really lose myself when I’m spinning out. The verses are simply just me talking to myself about the things that I think and feel and how I feel paralyzed by them, and the choruses are kind of sweet because it’s about a partner or someone you love reminding you to breathe and loving you through those moments. I don’t write love songs, but this one is kind of one.
Low
This song is really special to me because it’s the first song I ever released as an artist in 2019. I signed my first record deal a few months ago and they wanted to include this song in my first release with them because they loved it. It’s about grappling with doubts inside of a relationship and the inner conflict that was surrounding me at that time. I’ll always love it because this song led me to where I am today and I’ll always be grateful for it.
Age of the Internet (Nudes)
This song is extremely special to me. I wrote it and never thought in a million years I would release it, but I ended up pulling it out one day and my husband, who produced it, was adamant that we record it. It was just the two of us and we ate some mushrooms before we went into the studio and it was very cathartic. I recorded my vocals by myself and cried during the last chorus. This song is about one of my spinning out anxiety moments and how I let the internet and social media destroy me. We all do it and we’re all victims of it, so I wanted to just look at it and say it and put it into a song. It momentarily made me feel powerful over something I struggle with.
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:: stream/purchase Songs for No One here ::
:: connect with Victoria Bigelow here ::
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