The pandemic age has forced us to come face-to-face with many grim realities, and the feeling of loneliness is one that’s impossibly hard to shake. The separation we’ve endured — from our loved ones, from our social circles, from the routine tasks that helped shape our day-to-day — has been a sad constant, leaving a void in our daily lives that has stripped away a lot of our simple joys and pleasures. “Always,” the enchanting new single from British singer-songwriter Sophie Morgan, paints an elegant picture of our lives spent alone, and while it feels like a timeless ode to our longing for human connection, it rings louder in more vivid modern colors as we continue to touch others from a distance.
“The song always felt like a waltz for the lonely; I saw myself slowly swaying empty armed around the living room,” says Morgan. “I had that first line ‘leave the TV on’ about watching dodgy daytime television shows like Homes Under the Hammer… It made me think of elderly people, maybe who have lost their significant other, spending most days dreaming of special nights dancing together, losing a little bit of sanity with each passing day alone.”
“Always” was co-written by London songwriter Archie Faulks, and features The Verve’s Simon Jones on bass Matt Ingram (Laura Marling) on drums. The track follows Morgan’s 2020 EP Marmalade, and its release today (February 4) is adorned with a video, directed by Ollie Bradley Baker, that deepens the themes of loneliness and longing in the songwriting. It’s a Hollywood theme for the daydreamers, and much like life itself, there’s no Hollywood ending.
“We created the set in a local theatre, the first place I ever sang in public when I was nine,” says Morgan. “We joked that we were trying to make a million-dollar video on a shoestring in the middle of a pandemic and I hadn’t even danced since school PE. But I’m really proud we somehow managed to bring my crazy idea to life.”
And life, with its endless journey, is what makes all this worth it, even when we’re on our own.
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