Meadowlark’s beautifully vulnerable new single “What’s It Like to Love Me” is as much a soul-stirring serenade as it is a series of achingly intimate personal questions we’re often too afraid to ask.
“What’s It Like to Love Me” – Meadowlark
If often wonder what I’m like to be around…
Meadowlark’s latest single is as much a soul-stirring serenade as it is a series of achingly intimate personal questions.
What am I like to be around? Am I too quiet, too intense, or too loud? Do I ask too many questions or sing too much? Are you comfortable when our hands touch? All of this leads up to the most important question of all: What’s it like to love me? What’s it like to be on the other side of this feeling? It takes a special level of comfort and connection to express these wonderings aloud, and an even deeper one to sing them – but that’s what makes this song, as well as its accompanying music video, so powerful and moving: Meadowlark give voice to the anxious, unspoken thoughts in our heads in their beautifully vulnerable new single “What’s It Like to Love Me,” a tender tempest whose soothing indie folk sound is bested only by its raw lyrical candor.
Vulnerability is a strength, and it’s time we started talking about it and treating it as such.
I often wonder
What I’m like to be around
Am I too quiet, too intense, or too loud?
Do I ask too many questions or sing too much?
And are you comfortable when our hands touch?
What’s it like to love me?
Is it, is it easy?
I wanna know, I wanna know
What’s it like to be on the other side of this feeling?
I wanna know, I wanna know
Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering the music video for “What’s It Like To Love Me,” the latest single from British indie folk band Meadowlark (released March 10, 2023 via Fieldfare Records). The Plymouth-born, Bristol-based duo of Kate McGill and Daniel Broadley, Meadowlark have been weaving gentle wonders for the better part of the past decade, racking up well over 100 million global streams, releasing two studio albums and several EPs, and playing stages throughout Europe and their native United Kingdom – including the BBC Introducing stage at Glastonbury Festival.
Making fresh-sounding folk music is no easy task, and yet it comes second nature to McGill and Broadley, whose recent string of singles – beginning with late December’s poignant “Goodbye” and continuing through this past February’s gently glistening “Full Me, Half You” – highlight the intimate and expansive nature of their ever-evolving, all-consuming sound.
The third in this series, “What’s It Like To Love Me” is a gorgeous heart-on-sleeve confessional of everything we so often keep bottled up inside: The questions that eat away at us, whose answers may very well devour us whole. These thoughts are not for the faint of heart; they are the deep dives that explore the very foundations on which our relationships are built. Shining their light, Meadowlark take away the pain of their ask, instead inviting us to focus on how breathtaking and beautiful it is to love and be loved – even if that same beauty makes our hearts shudder and shake just a little bit. Kate McGill sings it best:
I often wonder
Will I repeat it all again?
Who will I fall for this time
and will they stay my friend?
Will it go the distance?
Will I take their name?
Or will I love too much and mess it up again?
“This song is for the anxiously attached,” McGill tells Atwood Magazine. “It took me years to figure out why I felt so insecure and needy in relationships. They never seemed to work for me. They never made me feel happy for long. But it’s because of this that I started to look inward and became much more self-aware. I started to question what it was like to love me; if it was easy or difficult, if I was too much of this or not enough of that etc.”
“I now know that the answer is never going to lie at the feet of someone else. It’s a pattern in my psyche and I need to remain conscious of that if i’m to feel secure within a relationship – but more than that, it’s about knowing that I really and truly don’t need someone to feel secure. I’m already whole and I’m already loved.”
What’s it like to love me?
Is it, is it easy?
I wanna know, I wanna know
What’s it like to be
on the other side of this feeling?
I wanna know, I wanna know
‘Cause if I’m gonna do this again,
oh I need a friend
To tell me when I’m losing myself,oh
When I’m losing them
Accompanying this ten-day-old single today is its cathartic music video, a one-shot film of McGill singing from the back of a moving pickup truck as it drives down an empty road at sunset. The sky is a dazzling blend of pinks, yellows, and oranges – already a scenic vista for introspective explorations – and McGill stands in a two-tone jean jacket, with one arm on the pickup’s ledge for support, focused on nothing in particular as the world passes her by and she, in turn, pours her heart out in song. In creating such a tranquil space, Meadowlark remind us that we have the permission to ask these same questions of ourselves and our loved ones. We’re allowed to know these answers, even if they bruise us; even if they bring a tear to our eyes. Intimacy and vulnerability are some of life’s most beautiful experiences, and “What’s It Like To Love Me” highlights just how deep that rabbit hole can go.
Stream Meadowlark’s new music video exclusively on Atwood Magazine.
What’s it like to love me?
Is it, is it easy?
I wanna know, I wanna know
What’s it like to be on the other side of this feeling?
I wanna know, I wanna know
— —
:: stream/purchase Meadowlark here ::
“What’s It Like to Love Me” – Meadowlark
— — — —
Connect to Meadowlark on
Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram
Discover new music on Atwood Magazine
© 2023
© 2023:: Stream Meadowlark ::
