Kelcy Mae accepted an invite from local New Orleans musicians to read Margaret Atwood's 2015 novel, The Heart Goes Last, write a song, and then join numerous other songwriters in live performance. Ever More Nest's new song "What's Gone is Gone," paired with a reflective, amber-doused visual, blooms out of this musical summons. The song's thematic current unsurprisingly carries great significance into Mae's personal journey.
"The dystopian, near-future tale about an imprisoned society was a peculiar read that got me thinking about how we go to great lengths to avoid acknowledging certain aspects of ourselves and to avoid really knowing ourselves," the singer-songwriter tells Wide Open Country. "We attempt to distract ourselves from our insecurities and weaknesses with any number of 'escapes,' but there really is no escape. The grass isn't greener on the other side—you just stopped watering your lawn."
"Hold up a mirror like a moth to a flame / Is knowing yourself worth all the pain?" Mae sings. "A lonely prisoner will find her own way / To pass the time and find some escape"
Willingness to change and grow takes an admittance that one's current state is simply a transition. Something greater awaits over the horizon, and there's always work to be done. "Time is the thief that keeps me up in the night," she later muses. The music video draws the viewer into her deep, dark rumination in a way that's beautifully simplistic. Stretches of highway rush against soft images of rain, tying together the notion that everything in life is truly universal.
Check it out below:
"What's Gone is Gone" anchors a forthcoming sophomore effort, titled Out Here Now, arriving August 19. The follow-up to the group's 2018 debut LP, The Place You Call Home, the album sees Ever More Nest once again turning to producer Neilson Hubbard. Musicians Will Kimbrough, Dean Marold and Fats Kaplin supply their talents across the 11 tracks.
The record, Mae promises, chronicles a "journey to and celebration of the soul that lends itself well to the active-listeners, dreamers, travelers and seekers," she says. "These songs are personal and spiritual explorations of loneliness, growth, vulnerability, and transformation—all feelings and experiences brought into focus during my pre-pandemic music and touring life and during the shutdowns and quarantine of the pandemic itself."
