Stepping into a new chapter in life can be a daunting prospect, but singer-songwriter Madeline the Person has approached each previous chapter of her life as an opportunity to digest and process her feelings. Accumulating in a set of 4 EP’s chronicling her life story, the third of which: ‘Chapter 3: The Burning’ is out now – sees Madeline step into old relationships as if opening a page in a journal. “All I knew is that I wanted it to be chapters,” she notes. “And I think I didn’t know how many because I’m still living my life, you know. It is the legit story of my life.” This story has had 2 parts so far – ‘Chapter 1’, which looked to the past, and ‘Chapter 2: The Shedding’, which was an insight into the present day. The latest chapter “is a little frightening,” she says and then laughs. “But everything is in the whole world so I don’t even care, I think it’s beautiful – let the world have it.” The first part of this latest chapter was the single ‘MEAN!’ – a story of fitting in. The song had hit 10 million streams in the first two weeks of release and has charted across North America to the UK, Norway and Australia.
The lyrics of the single explained a social struggle that showed difficulty in finding friends – an expansive story that is told through the eyes of a clown (acted by Madeline) in the official music video. This clear social divide or expulsion is a strong visual
across the 2 and a half minute video directed by Tess Lafia. The end sees the clown (Madeline) meet another clown at the party where the interactions are placed, ultimately finding commonality amongst peers. When asked about the message and the saying, ‘you will find your people eventually,’ Madeline tells me, “I think that’s the most important thing; it comes up in my life all of the time and I remember being younger and wishing someone would say that to me, because it’s like, ‘where are the people who will accept me? Where are they?’ But they’re there – it just takes time and exploring. It’s just a fact that there are people out there that are going to absolutely love the things about you that other people don’t accept.”
She also explains that the writing process was fast and took place in New York in just a single day. “I go into sessions without having any expectations of if I’m going to have a song at the end of it but we did, which is really cool. I was with Noah Kahan – he’s an amazing writer and artist, and Jonah Shy; he’s an incredible producer. I was thinking about what to talk about and it just kept coming up in my mind – that situation that happened at that party. So I thought it was what I should write about – I think because that’s how I choose to write about things when I’m alone. If it’s urgent in my mind and body [and] if it feels as if I need to get it out. I just told them the story and they totally understood; they had similar experiences when they were just baffled by someone else’s behaviour and felt othered. And felt like they don’t fit because of how someone acted towards them. And then we just wrote it, it was just quick and simple. It came together pretty nicely.”
This fear of being accepted is a common theme throughout the EP. The single ‘Why I Broke Up With You’ is an ode to that processing of feelings and is “pretty literal,” she adds in the PR for the track. “It’s what I wish I had said to my ex, but it didn’t come out this pretty the first time, so I wrote a song. Growing up, I dealt with my father’s addiction, so I have known from a really young age what an absent mind looks like. I knew how it felt to be talking to a completely different person, who you knew wouldn’t even remember what you were saying. My ex’s dependence on a substance uprooted the trauma of having to take care of an addicted adult as a little girl. I just couldn’t be that little girl again, so I left. That was what was healthy for me.” The track was written with Andrew Jackson, whilst Chris Loco produced the track. “There’s not a metaphor in there, it’s really honest,” she tells me. Lyrics include the rhetoric “why won’t you hold me?” – a painful line which outlines the emotions during the time, but connects with the larger story of ‘The Burning.’ “‘The Burning’ represents the rage that’s been brewing inside of us all for so long” she notes; this is the ultimate story of chapter 3.
“I think it’s super important that I’ve stayed close to my home base because my first EP was about everything that happened there growing up and loss, and all of that,” she explains. “So making sure that I’m living out the life that makes sense for my age; I’m 20. So when I was 18 it made sense that I was there, I just want to make sure things are as normal as possible. Now I can stay here for a while and experience new things, meet new people and be independent in a way that will reflect in my music. A lot of it does have to do with growing up and becoming.” This coming-of-age story is continued through the 6 tracks in the EP. Speaking about the story, Madeline explains that “it involves other
people and I’m really non-confrontational but I write songs about whatever’s happening. So it gets a little rough because it’s so specific to my life – it’s genuinely what happened. Talking about failed relationships, people will know which person they are [Laughs]. It’s really easy to write when it’s just about you and your feelings. But I’ve learned recently a little bit more about including real stories that include other people in songs, and how to unbiasedly present the situation, so I’m not telling an acute story but I’m telling a story of my feelings.”
Deeper cut ‘Baby Boy’ is a song that diverts anger into action. “I wrote it on a day when I was done with bullshit – I was over it. So I had fewer inhibitions about being totally nice; I think that makes really cool art sometimes. I love to be nice but at a certain point if I’m angry – that’s what the whole EP is about. I want to present my anger and my frustration in a way that is palatable and people will listen to it. Usually, anger, especially from a woman, is disregarded completely – ‘OK, she’s overreacting.’ But that’s literally so silly, we have very important things to say. [The] reason that I released my first song as a child is because I just decided one day to post it on TikTok. I realised that a lot of people need to talk about their grief and so making a safe space for grief, feelings and loss is like what I want to do. I feel that with EP 1 and 2 I’ve made space.[Also] making space: space for other people to share, to process their own feelings and that’s the most important part. My favorite messages are ones that say, ‘you know, this music helped me get through my loss of blank and blank,’ that’s what I want to do. This started as a therapeutic thing and now other people get to hear it which is really cool. But I want to make sure that I’m still serving the purpose to myself of getting my feelings out in a way that makes sense to me.”
‘Not Sorry’ focused on breaking down an invisible barrier in the relationship, whilst ‘Stupid Dog’ referred to the revelation that things had to change based on toxic behaviour. ‘Step on Flowers’ “is a visual representation of the crushing feeling of being unappreciated,” Madeline notes in the PR, but tells me, “a lot of these songs it’s like, ‘what the hell? That sucked.’ I think it’s good to think back on things and not sugar coat it. It’s really easy to want the memories to be sweet if they’re just not. It’s cool to be like, ‘that was horrible.’ When I was going through the beginning of my grief, and all of that really rough mental health stuff I wished someone was talking about it candidly. I wished that I had an artist or someone that I felt really got it and understood, and had a safe space for me. There are so many artists that do that but I couldn’t find one at the time that talked about grief for young people. I feel like that’s a taboo of sorts – no one wants to talk about that because it’s really rough, but it’s so important that the people who feel it feel understood – that’s part of the journey.”
