You’ve heard me talk about this particular toxic ex of mine several times. Swear to fucking Goddess I sometimes feel like Taylor Swift with the way I drag Mr. Wonder Dick in my writing. I spent eight months waiting for him to text me back with the same energy I gave him. Eight fucking months of “good morning” messages that got “hey” four hours later. Of making plans around his schedule while mine collected dust. I’d send paragraphs, get back three words. I’d ask about his day, he’d give me nothing then wonder why I seemed distant. The wild part? I convinced myself this was intimacy. I was so goddamn busy trying to be the cool girl who didn’t need too much that I forgot I needed anything at all. Then one Thursday I’m washing dishes at midnight and it hits me. I’ve been drowning this whole time and calling it swimming. M3G gets this specific hell. ‘Rooks’ opens with “I could have loved you if you’d let me / I was starting to believe I did” and I felt that line punch through my ribcage.
M3G is a singer-songwriter from Chippenham who’s been writing music since forever and performing live since she was 14. Her sound pulls from Florence + The Machine, AURORA, dodie, those artists who make vulnerable feel cinematic. She’s opened for Frank Turner at Bristol O2 Academy, supported Jools Holland, won local battle of the bands. ‘Rooks’ comes from the aftermath of what she calls “a repressive relationship, of being ignored, downtrodden and metaphorically drowned.” The song speaks to finding freedom after being made small. That journey from suffocation to breathing again.
The production on this track is dark pop meets dream pop with alt vibes running through it. M3G doubles her vocals here, inspired by Florence Welch’s layering technique, and the fullness it creates makes the song feel like it’s wrapping around you. The harmonies build this haunting-ass atmosphere that matches the emotional weight perfectly. You can hear the influence. That power and passion, the light and shade, those big choruses that Florence does so well.
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“And I cannot begin to imagine ever trying this again / You ripped into my lungs, let the water pour in.” Holy shit. That imagery of someone tearing open your lungs and letting you drown? That’s what emotional neglect feels like. You’re gasping for connection and they’re watching you struggle. M3G doesn’t soften this. She leans into the violence of it.
Then comes the gut-punch: “I wished to be seen, you wished for silence.” That’s the whole fucking relationship in ten words. You’re begging to matter and they’re begging you to take up less space – and that quiet absence is its own kind of hell. It’s “You said you’d hold me for now, but when I fell you were blind to it.” The “for now” promises that keep you hooked while giving them an exit. The performative support that evaporates the second you actually need it. “I thought we’d finally held something.” And the realization you were the only one holding on.
That opening line “I could have loved you if you’d let me” is brutal because it admits the worst truth: the love was there, the capacity was there, and the other person simply didn’t want to meet it. That shit hurts way more than cheating ever does. At least with cheating there’s a villain. With this? You just loved someone who refused to let you.
Listen, this next part is where M3G shifts the energy. “I’ve been spending every day on myself, darling / And I’ve been speaking to crows again.” The “darling” here feels loaded. Almost defiant. She’s reclaiming her time, her voice, her fucking sanity. The crows and ravens become witnesses, companions, the audience her partner refused to be. “I think they know who I am / I don’t / But the rooks have comforted me / Ravens helped me grieve.” Nature steps in where a human failed. That image of finding yourself through grief, through solitude, through creatures that understand loss? It’s feral healing energy.
“To the skies I returned after all that falling.” Okay but can we talk about how devastating this line is? She fell. She survived. She found her way back up. The falling wasn’t the end.
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The bridge wrecks me every damn time. M3G’s vocals soar here and the harmonies stack up. “Oh falling from your arms left me shaking.” The physical aftermath of emotional abuse. Your body remembers even when you’re trying to forget. “Screaming to the night brought me nothing / And it took so long for you to leave, I was starving.” That slow starvation while waiting for someone to either show up or get out. The limbo of half-presence that’s worse than absence. “They knew we’d never last to see the turning leaves of autumn.” Her friends saw it coming, his friends saw it coming, hell, probably strangers on the street saw it coming. The signs were there. She just wasn’t ready to see them yet.
M3G told us this track came from being in a relationship where she was “ignored, downtrodden and metaphorically drowned,” and you hear every bit of that truth. She’s been releasing music since 2023, crafting songs with what one local music magazine called “powerful ambience.” Her lyrics are bold as hell, profound, sharing elements of her being. ‘Rooks’ opens her up completely. She’s expressing her deepest thoughts on what it means to reclaim yourself after almost disappearing for someone else.
The ending shifts again. “I could have loved / But the clouds have returned / To my sunny world.” The capacity for love is still there. The grief is still there too. “But sometimes, when they fill the sky, there is no lining / But a sky of glowing silver.” This line fucking destroyed me. Sometimes there’s no silver lining. Sometimes the clouds are just clouds. Sometimes healing doesn’t come with a neat bow. What you get instead is a sky of glowing silver, something beautiful in its own right, even without the promise of sunshine.
Mr. Wonder Dick finally ended things four months ago. Or rather, he ghosted and I stopped pretending silence was a relationship. Deleted the text thread two weeks back. Last week I took myself to dinner alone and didn’t check my phone once. Yesterday I woke up and realized I’d stopped bracing for the disappointment text that wasn’t coming anymore. The crows outside my window were just crows. I was just me. And yeah, I’m still dragging him in my writing like Taylor with her exes, but at least now I’m doing it from solid ground instead of mid-freefall.
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