The new release from Canadian Michela Sheedy is pretty remarkable for a second single, as it shows a great depth in songwriting ability that takes some artists a lifetime to build up to. Co written with Chris Yurchuck this is a little gem in the making as Michela nails a feeling that will be universally familiar and ties it to a killer tune, namely the fact that life can be passing you by until you meet that special person.
Of course Michela puts it far more poetically than that and when she sings
"I’ve lost a lot of things a lot of sleep, didn’t chase a lot of dreams thinking they wouldn’t come true" there will be a lot of people thinking that she is singing their song.
She goes on to list a number of things she has lost to perfectly set up the pay off line "I had to lose a lot of things so I could find you". There's a real sense of emotional honesty in the writing and we really share her pain when she says things like "I’ve lost a Friday to a bar stool, lost myself in a memory cos I was too scared of something new" which paints a vivid picture.
If the opening verse and chorus is mainly an acoustic guitar with an electric one in the background almost wailing along, the second verse kicks off with a drum beat and the song becomes the big ballad it was always destined to be, yet still retaining a sense of intimacy, for the shift in gear is limited to just that the drum sound,apart from a restrained guitar solo. Michela's voice retains traces of some of the rockiness of her earlier single giving the song a certain feeling of vulnerability that make the line "Could never dream of losing you" all the more convincing, neatly contrasting the dreams of contentment against the angst of lost sleep in the earlier verses.
It follows on from her 2018 debut "I Make Bad Look God" which was a completely different sound altogether. in that it was something of a fusion of styles, a somewhat grungy distorted guitar, a pounding drum beat and a wailing harmonica along with Michela's sassy, rocky. slightly distorted vocals.
It was a confident introduction into the recording world and was destined to grab peoples attention with it's teasingly provocative delivery. and an in your face sound.
When she sings "I'm a gunslinger, a bell ringer, looking for a pretty little ring for my finger" or
"I got 2 horns where my halo should be" the immediate reaction is to want to know more about who is behind this song. The final 20 seconds or so of the single where Michela really lets rip are worth the price of admission alone and already hinted at someone who had a lot more to give.