Molly Wroe

21 year old Norwegian singer-songwriter Marie Ulven Ringheim, more commonly known as girl in red, has released her hotly-awaited lead single ‘midnight love’.
The single is from her upcoming album ‘World in Red’ and takes the form of a dreamy, melancholic ode to casual sex and feeling second best to someone.

The song begins with a mellow piano and plucked guitar strings, which set the tone almost immediately and let us know that this is not a happy song.
It has almost a bittersweet, nostalgic feel to it, like something I’ve heard in a dream, or a backing instrumental to a sad scene in a film.

In comparison to her other singles, ‘midnight love’ seems to focus more on being emotionally raw as opposed to sounding raw - the mix is fuller and sounds more rounded-out than her 2019 EP ‘chapter 2’, but maintains the sensitive emotions portrayed in all her previous songs.

Following this, we have a sombre, hushed tone from Marie, and she makes us very aware of her emotions straight away.
In a ‘show-don’t-tell’ type of way, we journey through the increasingly more common story of two people seeing each other but not really favouring the other in a romantic way.

In a personally heartbreaking line for anyone who’s ever felt the same way in an almost-relationship, she sings:

“I know I don’t want to be the one that you run to, when you’ve got nowhere else to go…”

Her chorus further hammers home the desperation of needing to be loved by the other, a plea for validation into an empty void:

“I can’t be your midnight love, when your silver is my gold,

In this light I swear I’m blind, in this light I swear you’re mine…”

In further verses, we see girl in red practically begging for the day she can pull herself away from this vacant relationship as the song builds to a crescendo.
The piano, the strings and the despairing wails come together in such a way that feels like a never-ending downward spiral of sadness; even if you can’t relate to the overall story she tells, her music creates a dreadful melancholy feeling that sticks in the heart.

As the song fizzles out, I feel almost as if it’s over too quickly and that I need more - a feeling that runs almost parallel to the meaning of the song itself.

Overall, I think ‘midnight love’ is yet another example of how talented girl in red is.
Marie’s sorrowful lyrics and heavy-hearted instrumental made me feel a whole wave of emotions that often get pushed way down, and any song that can successfully do that is worthy of praise.

From the lead single it looks as though ‘World in Red’, hopefully expected in October, will be as incredible as anticipated, and I can’t wait.