Lucy

'Haunted' captures the devastation of a dead-end police investigation. I wrote it in December 2020, the month the lead officer called to say they'd interviewed the suspect, then came back to it for my research into anger and songwriting. Five years, a handful of reharmonisations and an open C tuning later, here's the story behind my first single from Conversations with Myself, out 30 October. Content note: rape and police investigation.

I used to get annoyed at people who talked about how unfair their problems were — how ignored and invisible they felt. I told myself to stay quiet, not make a fuss, not complain. What I realised, though, is those quiet thoughts and loud judgements were more towards myself than anyone else. It took a friendship, and a slow burn of self-awareness, to turn that around — to start making space for my own story. And then, eventually, to start singing it loud.

Can you forgive someone who never apologised? I spent years refusing to ask. Here's what writing a song taught me.