I think I’m a little bit in love with CMAT. Perhaps it has something to do with her being my namesake. It has a lot to do, however, with the brilliant string of singles she’s put out over the past year or so. With debut album If My Wife New I’d Be Dead due on 4th March, we were treated to a new track from the record yesterday. The track is Lonely and while it tackles themes of isolation and mental health struggles, there’s that genius comedy element in the track that you’d expect. I think that the songwriting is perhaps the biggest factor in my love of CMAT (offering up “who needs god when I have Robbie Williams?” and “I honestly forgot that you even existed” as evidence.)
Love the video too. Shot and produced by Tiny Ark, it unveils another string in CMAT’s bow – roller-skating.
On the track, Ciara shares: “I started writing the song ‘Lonely’ in the Arndale food hall in Manchester when I was on my break from work. Anyone who has been there will know that it is as aesthetically unpleasant as it is bustling, at all hours of the day. There was something that always drew me to it though – people. I was very isolated during this period of my life and longed for a day when I could be sitting at a table of friends that I did not have. Instead, I found myself regularly sitting alone and watching strange families and friend groups, peering out from underneath a Taco Bell crunch wrap, for a false sense of comfort.“It took me years to finish this song because I couldn’t figure out the point of it. Then the pandemic happened, and suddenly I realised that everybody was in the boat that I had been long accustomed to (my sea legs are beefy in this regard). I realised that the point of isolation is maybe to learn to cherish people more, and to not be so scared of them, or scared of how you are perceived by them.
“Ultimately though, I wrote this song to try and get Robbie Williams to notice me.”