Rejection Letter, the latest album and third full-length release from singer, songwriter and pianist, Mackenzie Shivers, found her tapping into her rebellious heart for what’s been described as a bolder and braver soundscape. Lyrically, the album found her touching on female anger, questioning the contemporary world, deciding to have a child and struggling to conceive, and the desire to help others feel less alone in their uncertainties and fears.
Mackenzie on the song and video:
“I’m so thrilled that Folk Radio UK is premiering the video for “Butterscotch”, a song that is very special to me. The film is a surreal, dreamlike take on the opening line “I’m so goddamn lonely I visit the corners of my mind.”
“The song is one of contrasts – wanting to feel special while yearning to feel less alone – and I love how filmmaker Lâle Teoman juxtaposes humour and playfulness with dark undertones. Feeling two conflicting things at once is very human, and I’m consistently trying to embrace that. Lâle shot this in her homeland of Australia, and her good friend and actor Madeline Baghurst is a redhead, so we thought it would be really fun if she played me in the video, leaning into that theatrical vibe.”
The late actor, filmmaker and writer, Peter Ustinov, touched on the nature and need for inner doubt in the opening of his autobiography “Dear Me”…”…the personality of any normally constituted person must be capable of at least a certain flexibility, otherwise, the machinery for doubt would be absent, and what is a more irrefutable proof of madness than an inability to have a doubt?”
While this song and video embrace such conflict, it feels less of a constraint and more one of lyrical exploration. Her lines, both poetic and catchy, leave you wanting more…”Late in December a little voice of reason starts to beg/The snow turned to butterscotch and stuck to old wounds inside my head”. The song and video combined, create something quite mesmerising and magical.
Buy Rejection Letter here: http://mackenzieshivers.com/rejection-letter-menu
Photo Credit: Lissyelle Laricchia