Chvrches singer Lauren Mayberry is back with a new single following “Are You Awake?” which dropped in September. The new track, titled “Shame,” is a departure from that melodic ballad, where Mayberry addresses love lost, nostalgia, and state of mind. These two tracks are the start of Mayberry’s first solo project, as she had been the lead singer of Chvrches since its inception in 2011. In July 2023 she announced she would be taking a momentary step back from Chvrches to focus on her solo career.
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In contrast to “Are You Awake?,” the new single “Shame” is an electric track highlighting Mayberry’s sweet, clear vocals. It features a toe-tapping beat overlaid with stretched-out synth chords and an undercurrent of barely suppressed desperation from Mayberry’s lyrics.
How embarrassing to get this far and never really change, she sings in the bridge, bringing the titular shame to the forefront as well as in the previous lines, Tell me sweet things / enough to make me beg / I’ll learn to like it / at least that’s what you said.
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“I had the idea for a while of a song that had the tagline of ‘what a shame,’ but in a sarcastic way,” Mayberry shared in a statement. “And the word ‘shame’ having a double meaning — the shame you feel and internalize, but what a shame you feel like that and can’t change it.”
“Shame” handily addresses this double agent of internalized hatred and inevitable emotion, easily shifting between the two throughout the track. Mayberry went deep into the meaning behind the song in her statement, commenting on what was deemed attractive in the early 2000s and how those things are considered toxic and disturbing now.
“Looking back on a lot of my life in terms of relationships, sexuality and my sense of self in the world, there is a lot of shame associated with that,” Mayberry said. “I came into my teens in the early-mid 2000s, a time period we now regard as a bit of a shithole in terms of gender and media messages (post–Woodstock 99, the dawn of sex tape leaks, Girls Gone Wild, etc. etc). What was deemed ‘attractive’ for women and girls was quite disturbing in hindsight, and that’s what went into my brain at a formative time, romanticizing bargain basement, local band boy versions of Reality Bites Ethan Hawke.”
She continued, “But now I know better, my wiring is still to find those things attractive on a cellular level. I know not to want those things academically, but emotionally, romantically, sexually, I have been trained to find those things valuable and attractive.”
Mayberry is currently wrapping her first solo tour, which started in September. It will conclude with dates in Europe at the end of October.
Photo by Scarlett Casciello / Courtesy of Universal Music Group
