Lauren Mayberry has releasds her new single “Shame,” a leftfield pop track that signposts a bold new direction for her solo career.
It is the second solo song released by CHVRCHES’ vocalist, following her acclaimed debut ballad “Are You Awake?” released in the summer. Mayberry just completed her first solo US tour, with NPR catching her opening night and saying, “The show felt significant, like a moment people might talk about years from now as the start of something big.”
“I had the idea for a while of a song that had the tagline of ‘what a shame,’ but in a sarcastic way,” says Lauren of the song. “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.
“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. I came into my teens in the early-mid 2000s, a time period we now regard as a bit of a s__thole 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.
“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. I know you are what you eat and it’s the taste that keeps me tame.”
While 2023 marks the 10th anniversary of CHVRCHES’ debut, The Bones Of What You Believe, Mayberry is decidedly looking to the future. Formed in Glasgow in 2011, CHVRCHES broke out with their debut single, “The Mother We Share.”