Nashville singer/songwriter Mali Velasquez’s debut album, I’m Green, is on the way, set to arrive later this year. Last month, she unveiled her debut single “Tore,” a stunning, woozy singer/songwriter track that showcased the cracking cosmos of her vocal range, and her latest single is no different. “Bobby” is an intimate ode to Velasquez’s memory of her late mother. With sparse instrumentation that swells into a gorgeous folk-pop climax, it’s a dense, rewarding piece of construction. “In late October, when daughter Maria comes and she’s sitting on the edge of the hospital bed that you’ll leave us on,” Velasquez sings. “And when it’s all over, will you forget what I’ve said? Whatever memorial is carved over Amy’s head.” “Bobby” is one of the most moving, visceral and generous tracks you’ll hear this month, maybe all year.
Velasquez says about the track: “I wrote ‘Bobby’ originally about losing my mom when I was in high school, I had a lot of these visuals of her being sick. The only connections I can find from sickness and death are in animals and nature, which felt like my way out of grieving in a tunnel vision. The chorus of the song is largely about my coping with her loss, mostly being unable to move or stop staring at the wall. Grief and moving from unhealthy coping mechanisms to safer ones is a thick and embarrassing struggle that seeps into a lot of these songs.”
Watch the Reed Schick-directed music video for “Bobby” below.