Against a sparse beat that feels as limitless and sublime as a star-filled sky, girl in red delivers the opening lines to “midnight love,” a new song that proves the hype surrounding her is most definitely real. “i know i don’t want to / be the one that you run to / when you got nowhere else to go,” sings girl in red (Marie Ulven), delivering a dreamy bedroom pop bop that also doubles as an anthem about self-respect and knowing your worth. “i can’t be your midnight love / when your silver is my gold.”
” ‘midnight love’ feels like my best work so far,” girl in red says in a statement, before revealing a surprising twist. “It’s my first song with a piano, but the approach of writing it was a bit different than usual too. even though I’m singing from my perspective, as the “victim,’ in real life, it was actually me who was [the] “bad guy.’ a close friend was treated the same way I had treated someone else. like, this dude would text her at night to see if they could meet up, and it kind of gave her false hope that they could be something more, so she always would say yes and be there for him.”
“Seeing that so up close gave me some perspective, and I realized that my situation was very similar. So this song is pretty much me reflecting on how small I’ve made someone else feel. Even though I never meant to be a dick, I was. We met up recently after she heard the song, and I apologized. I think she forgave me,” she adds.
2020 has been a breakout year for girl in red. She kicked off the year by becoming the first cover artist for leading UK LGBTQ magazine Gay Times and making the shortlist for NME’s Best New Act In The World. Her song “kate’s not here” was also featured on the soundtrack to the Steven Spielberg-produced movie, The Turning.
Much like the other bright stars of the current generation of music, girl in red started her career in her bedroom. Everything heard on beginnings, a special vinyl bundle of her 2019 chapter 1 and chapter 2 EPs, was made at home, capturing the DIY spirit in a sound that has earned her the distinction of being a “Pop Savant Plotting her 2020 ‘World Domination.’ ”
“Next up, I’ve got some next-level sh-t,” she told Billboard in 2019. “I’m gonna… I can’t say much, but it is at least going to take over the world. It’s so good, my idea is so good. I have a worldwide hit song in my head, so I’m fully planning on world domination, it’s gonna be World in Red, album in 2020. You can quote me on that.” If “midnight love” is the world domination that we can expect, then all hail your new pop overlord, girl in red.