Premiere: Madison Malone accepts her own ‘Fragile Heart 1’
The folk upstart owns up to her flaws with her moving new piano ballad.
It’s only natural for the human mind to be adverse to confrontation, particularly one’s own inherent fault lines. It’s like vanishing as the wind at dusk, only cracks in the pavement a reminder you were even there. But when you let the veil fall away from your face, revealing pools of beauty and true benevolence, you’re able to step into the radiance of your own creation. Folk storyteller Madison Malone lumbers to the piano, starstruck and brittle, for a moment of bravery. New single “Fragile Heart 1,” premiering today, is dazzling and porcelain in texture but commands a quiet strength, as she exposes every vast blemish on her skin. She does so with a razor-sharp precision but flies as a dove up and into the sun’s prancing rays, curving amidst a sea of cotton-candy clouds.
“I have a fragile heart,” she confesses right from the outset, never failing to strike with plainspoken charm. “It can get broken down / Aggression comes around / I hardly make a sound…” Forged with astonishing songcraft, hitting at such universal truths as self-loathing, patience and personal evolution, it’s a resounding prayer to not only rediscover one’s self-worth but as a soothing agent for a world gone mad. “Although [the song] comes out on Valentine’s Day, it isn’t exactly a love song,” Malone tells B-Sides & Badlands. “It is more of a self-acceptance, confession song. What happens when we dig down deep and come face to face with our weak points? When we stand in front of the mirror and accept who we truly are? I find that when we identify our weaknesses, we are simultaneously being strong.”
While her angelic vocal cords dip between cool, shadowy valleys and frost-tipped mountains, there is a determined spirit carving out her path just below the surface. “I have a wandering eye / I’m barely satisfied / And when I’m feeling down / I think of the love I found,” she continues to patiently flick up layers of herself, excavation duties to bare the good, the bad, the ugly. Malone, who hails from Wisconsin, has already proven her worth since moving to Los Angeles just over two years ago; she’s collaborated with the likes of Anthony Federov, Leonell Cassio, and APZE, among others, and lent her penmanship to commercials and ad campaigns.
But her star is finally being born with “Fragile Heart 1.”
Listen below:
Follow Malone on her socials: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Website
