More about: Matt Maltese

If there’s something I love no matter what mood I’m in – it’s a breakup song. I don’t care if it’s sad, angry, upbeat, or abstract: they make for the best karaoke tunes and dramatic-staring-out-the-bus-window tracks. This is where Matt Maltese enters my most listened to artist on Spotify because his songs always add that bit of melancholy with beautiful vocals to my life. 

Which makes this last week complete for me, with Friday 8th seeing the release of ‘Mother’, a new single debuted on his UK tour, finally entering streaming sites. We all know classic breakup songs are cultural items in the music sphere, but this is unlike one I’ve ever heard: it’s a song to his mam following a break-up which has upset her, too, because she thought of the girlfriend as ‘the daughter [she] never had’, which absolutely rips my heart up. I think the notion of rewriting a breakup song as a love song to your mam is the sweetest act that has ever happened. And Matt Maltese has really cut his teeth wrtiting these thoroughly modern, entirely untraditional love and heartbreak songs.

There’s so much more to breakups than the typical ballads suggest; most notably that it is never just the lovers who are hit by the ending of the relationship. I think the important thing to remember is that in a modern representation of a breakup, we see it affecting everyone who knew the couple intimately – Matt Maltese takes the view of his mother in this situation. As a result, ‘Mother’ really got me thinking about was the way we should acknowledge breakups: those that aren’t romantic, those that are, and those that aren’t malicious. There’s a big gap in the market of breakup songs for alternative relationships, and alternative perspectives on a traditional breakup song. 

There’s something to be said about the reason breakup songs are so popular: it’s because they’re easily relatable to those of us who have felt such emotion for someone else to have it ended – this isn’t just between lovers, so why are we shying from writing songs about breaking up friendships, your favourite teacher finding a new job, moving houses? Breakups come in so many shapes, and they shouldn’t be strictly related to love. Matt Maltese is the artist for understanding when you’re hurting, you’re not the only one, even if it’s not a romantic loss.

"There’s a big gap in the market of breakup songs for alternative relationships..."

In associating others’ hurts in the ending of a relationship, Maltese reminds us of the beauty of humanity; in that there’s an ability to help others when you’re grieving to make the pain less heavy to carry. This simple notion of human kindness might also connect the dots on why we love breakup songs so much – they help us combat the emotions we’re going through by sharing the pain in music and with our favourite artists.

The overarching message of this single is that ‘the joy of human nature [is] some people stumbling into your heart for all time’ and that sums up a modern breakup, in that we have moved on from songs that detail the specific ins and outs of who’s to blame to make way for songs that explore the beauty of loving another person so hugely – regardless of whether or not it’s forever. People come and go, but mams (and breakup songs) are our Northern Stars.

'Mother' is out now

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More about: Matt Maltese