Maddie Ashman - 'I’d Rather Fall'
Maddie Ashman reflects on how she has grown since her teenage heartbreak in latest track ‘I’d Rather Fall’ and encourages you to look inwards and forgive your younger self too.
Since releasing her EP ‘Apparently’ and in between playing the cello for Tom Rosenthal, the sky has been the limit for singer/songwriter and instrumentalist extravagando Maddie Ashman. She returns with her wonderfully delicate and subdued vocals on her newest track, ‘I’d Rather Fall’, in which she looks back to her younger self and considers how she has learnt and grown from a love lost. Whilst deeply personal, Ashman wanted to tap into the universality of young love and the trials and tribulations it often brings. On her motivations behind the lyrics she explains:
‘Its about inevitably falling in love when you hadn’t planned to, its about the simultaneous thrill and terror of letting go and running away with your feelings.’
Capture these things she does in buckets full, all whilst maintaining the sound of youthful naivete and innocence. The vast multi-tracking over the course of the track mirrors Ashman’s own navigation through her teenage years and as they build she learns more and more about what it means to be in and out of love. Her beautifully gentle vocals grow into a chorus of voices in harmony, bringing the narrative of the track to life and symbolise the way she has evolved from the sweet girl hopelessly in love into the empowered young woman we recognise today.
The track opens with a glowing surge of music and Ashman’s distinct soft vocals. Immediately we are transported into her history as she sings the opening line
‘When I was 16, I set my boundaries - had said the line at three dates before I’d feel something or let myself. But then I got that feeling, those butterflies, and they all went out the window’.
The lyrics brilliantly capture the thought process and hesitant approach to love that Ashman formed in her youth. A means to protect herself and her heart from being broken, she built up walls and would wait till she was certain before allowing herself to fall in love. She explains though that with this particular relationship, all that meticulous planning and safeguarding went out the window. She continues to explain that she, perhaps reluctantly, broke her own rules but it was because she had never experienced a love like this before. She articulates an understanding that this is not the ‘correct’ nor best way to be going about things but something about following her heart rather than her head felt right. Whilst all of this musical poetry is going on, we hear the gentle pitter-pattering of pizzicato cello. It’s no secret that Maddie is a hugely talented instrumentalist, but in this track we really get a glimpse at the amazing things she can do with sound. The multi-layering of different harmonies against different instrumentals would typically create a dense and heavy sound but Ashman has done it in such a way that it feels airy, dainty and filled with light. Through the lyrics in the chorus, Ashman explains her rationale: ‘It’s true, I’d rather fall than not feel nothing at all’. While she knows she may live to regret it, the joy of living and loving in the moment makes the potential sting down the line that little bit sweeter. The way the lines run into each other is a kind of musical enjambement and wonderfully illustrates the whirlwind dizzy feeling of a new relationship.
As the track continues so does the relationship and we are able to observe the way things change. She wistfully explains that at a time where she felt closest to her partner, the decision to put some distance between the pair was made. With this change, the feel and meaning of the track shifts. Rather than ‘falling in love’, Maddie is instead having to endure ‘the fall’ which comes from heartbreak. She maintains that it was the right thing though and a woman aware of her worth despite her young age, she explains she wasn’t going to chase her partner. At the beginning of this section, the rhythm section really comes into its own. It becomes evident that this ‘beat dropping’ is mirroring the penny dropping in Ashman’s mind that the relationship had run its course; a clever and subtle easter egg. There is a lot of echoing vocals in the second verse, notably on the words ‘never felt closer’ and ‘to talk things over’. You can’t help but feel like this is Ashman’s conscience talking to her, the same one that in the chorus warns her she will be bitten back by this love. The call and response on the line ‘Told me you’d cheated before so casual is safer / I said we’re young it's fair enough’ continues this inner dialogue: it is though she is trying to reason with herself and convince the conscience that things will be alright. Deep down though it's clear that she knows the end is here. When we return to the chorus, it feels more melancholy. The line ‘I never loved one quite as much as you’ brings a real pang to the heartstrings and we feel Maddie’s teenage heartache alongside her. Whilst never becoming angry nor overpowered, her vocals are delivered with a sense of passion and strength that wasn’t needed before and thus the lyrics take on a different meaning. Before it hinted at a bashful, naive and intrinsically childlike wonder at a relationship, the line 'that's not the way these things tend to go’ now is Ashman coming to terms with the reality of her situation. The track closes with the Maddie we know who has learnt from her youth and she notes that whilst the experience was scary and difficult, it is still one that she enjoyed and continues to cherish.
An introspective evaluation of teenage love, Ashman and we as the observer understand that we cannot look back on these experiences with frustration at ourselves and our behaviour. Maddie has grown to forgive herself for having fallen in love and is all the stronger having endured the fall-out that came afterwards. Its a wonderful perspective on how we can look at old relationships and actions of our past selves; it is always better to have done the thing because you will know what it feels like to have had it. As festival season creeps ever nearer, Maddie will be appearing alongside the gorgeous audiovisual installation Through the Motions which is set to feature at Thrive. All in aid of Britten Pears Arts, its shaping up to be a wonderful week of music, art and cultural connection and who knows, perhaps she will do a live debut performance for this track.
Words by Kirsty-Ann Thomson
